As has been previously reported, on April 1, 2014, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 was enacted, which specified that the Secretary may not adopt ICD-10 prior to October 1, 2015. This left some uncertainty as to what the new date would be exactly. 

Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that they intend to release an interim final rule in the near future that will include a new compliance date that would require the use of ICD-10 beginning October 1, 2015. The rule will also require HIPAA covered entities to continue to use ICD-9-CM through September 30, 2015.

In addition, HHS announced that the previously planned ICD-10 end-to-end testing CMS intended to conduct during the week of July 21 through 25, 2014, was being postponed to a date yet to be determined.  In making the announcement, however, HHS did state that “Additional opportunities for end-to-end testing will be available in 2015.”

The use of the plural “opportunities” at least suggests that there will be more than one opportunity for end-to-end testing in 2015.  

Thanks to Bill Finerfrock, Matt Reiter, Lara Burt and Carolyn Bounds for contributing this article.