The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has submitted a letter
to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Acting Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to reiterate
strong support for maintaining the October 1, 2014 revised date for
nationwide adoption of ICD-10.
In its Feb. 7 letter, HIMSS urged CMS to “send a strong message that
ICD-10 has already been thoroughly vetted, will be implemented on the
regulatory date, and that we must move forward with the nationwide
implementation of ICD-10 by the current adoption date of October 1, 2014
in order to realize the significant advantages of healthcare
transformation." Advantages cited in the letter include:
- Enhanced patient experience
- Emphasis on health IT as the groundwork for overall healthcare transformation
- Quality of population health and healthcare delivery improvement
- Eliminating waste by improving clinical and business intelligence
- Cost savings in avoiding loss of billions of dollars in already-invested efforts in preparing for ICD-10.
HIMSS outlines its considerable education efforts to support
providers and provider organizations with ICD-10 transition, including
its ICD-10 Playbook and the HIMSS/Workgroup for Electronic Data
Interchange (WEDI) ICD-10 National Pilot Program currently in
development. HIMSS also notes that the “improvement and standardization
of electronic transactions has already proven to be a beneficial cost
savings to the industry and must continue progress in this area or we
stand to lose these savings.”
HIMSS strongly encourages CMS to avoid any further delays in the
ICD-10 adoption date, and noted that any further delays in ICD-10 will
only signal that CMS is not serious about administrative simplification
and HIPAA requirements.
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