Dive Brief:
- A test of the new ICD-10 code sets last month saw CMS accepting 76% of the claims filed during the week-long trial run, the agency announced earlier this week.
- The idea behind the test is simple: CMS wants to ensure that providers understand how to use the new codes, while providers want to verify that their claims won't be denied because of system errors. All in all, the test results were well-received, bearing in mind that a small percentage of claims were deliberately mis-coded to see if CMS would catch them.
- The test compiled data from 13,700 claims submitted by a group of 500 participants, including billing companies, clearing houses, providers and suppliers. The results were revealed on the heels of the announcement of another test scheduled with a small group of providers nationwide in April.
Dive Insight:
One of the biggest failures of this past year was the ICD-10 migration that never happened, but that doesn’t mean that CMS is falling asleep at the wheel. Doctors lobbied Congress hard for an extension for compliance, winning a delay until October 2015.
The agency isn't sitting around flipping pages in their day planners. This test, and the one planned in April, are going to help strengthen the case for not delaying implementation of ICD-10 beyond 2015.
Moreover, the results weren’t bad, considering the intentional errors and small sampling size. The percentage of acceptance grew to 87% by the end of the week’s test, and that’s not a bad place to be 10 months away from pushing the button.