“I do not think this is inadvertent on the part of CMS and believe this is a way for CMS to set a new date without going back through a separate rulemaking process,” Devin Jopp, president and CEO for the Workgroup for Electronic Data Exchange (WEDI), told ICD10monitor in an email. “This same approach was taken last time when ICD-10 was delayed as part of an unrelated regulation. WEDI will continue to work with its members and will operate under the assumption that we need to all work together to hit a Oct. 1, 2015 deadline.”
On the other hand, Stanley Nachimson urges caution in concluding that the 2015 date is truly being proposed.
“The ICD-10 date does not appear to be a proposal in this rule,” Nachimson said in an email to ICD10monitor. “On page 128, the NPRM (notice of proposed rulemaking) says of the delay in the law ‘As of now, the Secretary has not implemented this provision under HIPAA.’”
Nachimson said that while this 2015 IPPS proposed rule may seem to indicate that there is a one-year delay, there is nothing in the language that indicates a proposed new deadline date.
“We would have to see the exact wording of the proposed rule (not just the preamble),” Nachimson said. “I don’t think this is a proposal for a new date that they are seeking comments on.”
Also urging caution in interpreting the CMS language of the ICD-10 proposed dates is Medical Management Group (MGMA) Senior Policy Director Robert Tennant. Tennant told ICD10monitor that he wasn’t sure that the notice was an “official” notice of the new date.
“If it is in fact the agency’s regulatory announcement of the new date, this is a proposed rule and thus this ‘proposed’ date should be open to public comment,” Tennant said.
CMS had no comment.
