Dive Brief:
- CMS officials took part in a two-day summit organized by the American Health Information Management Association this week, but were unable to give anyone there more information on the new ICD-10 deadline.
- Lynne Thomas Gordon, CEO of AHIMA, said a CMS official there said the regulatory language is being drafted, but had nothing concrete to offer, according to Health Leaders magazine.
- Gordon told Health Leaders that her guess was that the date would be October 1, 2015, even though the new rules would conceivably allow the agency to choose a further-off date.
Dive Insight:
Given that CMS itself was caught off guard by Congress' decision to move the ICD-10 date, officials there must be frenzied in their efforts to come up with a new deadline they can live with and rules that its constituency can follow. It does seem likely that CMS will come up with an answer soon, however, given the pressure on officials from all sides. For once, CMS gets to be the nail rather than the hammer.