Go ahead and mark your calendar: Medicare officials have issued a final regulation setting Oct. 1, 2015, as the official compliance date for switching to the ICD-10 coding system.
Earlier this year, Congress delayed the transition from the ICD-9 to ICD-10 coding systems for at least a year but did not specify the exact compliance date, leaving that to the discretion of officials at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
CMS first announced the Oct. 1, 2015 compliance date – the earliest start allowed under the law – in May. But the new date wasn’t official until the agency released an interim final rule, which it did July 31.
mschneider@frontlinemedcom.com
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