I clearly recall the first time I heard about ICD-10. A speaker at an AAPC conference taught us about lengthy code series for injuries inflicted by poultry and told us CPCs to get ready. Attending with me was an infant boy so young I could not leave him at home while I earned my CEUs.
This fall, that baby boy enters middle school, right around the time ICD-10 is expected to make its equally awkward debut.
Some lawmakers want to give this ICD-10 baby a little more time. After three major delays since the final rule implementing ICD-10 appeared in 2009, it’s déjà vu all over again.
Rep. Ted Poe has introduced H.R. 2126, the Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2015, a bill that seeks to delay ICD-10 implementation once again and a sequel to a similar delay bill Poe introduced two years earlier, which never made it into Committee.
“The new ICD-10 codes will not make one patient healthier,” says Poe.
The bill has six Republican co-sponsors: Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), Mike Rogers (R-Alabama), Mo Brooks (R-Alabama), Morgan Griffith (R-Virginia), Tom Price (R-Georgia), and David Roe (R-Tennessee).
Experts predict the bill will lose traction in Committee. It seems 2015 will be the year we finally grow up, say a nostalgic good-bye ICD-9 Never Never Land, and forge ahead into the Brave New World of ICD-10. October 1, 2015 is 138 days away and we’re counting down.
