AHA, Premier back ICD-10 adoption plan

While many industry organizations are up in arms, it seems that the American Hospital Association is ready to back the HHS plan for rolling out ICD-10 code sets within three years. The AHA is joined in its endorsement by Premier, a quality and group purchasing network. The two groups say that the ICD-10 codes would help providers better measure outcomes, monitor adverse drug events and improve industry tracking of public health issues.

Most of the AHA's peers aren't so sanguine, however. The HHS proposal, which would require providers to adopt ICD-10 code sets for electronic health transactions by October 2011, is opposed by several major healthcare industry groups, including the Medical Group Management Association, the American Medical Association and America's Health Insurance Plans. All three have said that three years isn't enough time for their members to make the transition from one code set to another.

Part of the reason providers are cringing over the new proposal is the scope of what they'll have to accomplish. While ICD-9 can accommodate about 17,000 codes, ICD-10 includes more than 155,000 codes, which certainly doesn't make the IT department's life any easier.

To learn more about this issue:
- read this iHealthBeat piece

Related Articles:
HHS proposes 2011 deadline for ICD-10 code adoption
CMS now says NPI must match IRS data
Switch to ICD-10 should be very costly
Doctors, health plans want longer ICD-10 timeline