In a much anticipated announcement, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a proposed rule that will postpone the ICD-10 compliance deadline by one year, to Oct. 1, 2014. The new deadline will give payers and providers a little over two years to implement ICD-10. This is great news for the healthcare payers that were running behind on their ICD-10 implementation due to HIPAA 5010 and various other industry mandates.
The proposed rule would implement several administrative simplification provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including the establishment of a unique health plan identifier under the HIPAA standards. The health plan identifiers would have a standard length and format, which would allow providers to automate many of their billing processes and other administrative tasks. HHS estimates that the health plan identifier along with the other provisions in the proposed rule will save health plans and providers up to $4.6 billion over the next 10 years.
Comments are due 30 days from the date the proposed rule was published in the Federal Register.
View the press release
View the HHS proposed rule
View a fact sheet about the one-year ICD-10 deadline delay
View a fact sheet about HHS’ proposed unique health plan identifier rule