Revised ICD 10 Deadline - Time to Review Your Neutrality Strategy
With the CMS update on revised compliance date for ICD 10, State Medicaid departments get the much needed time to step up their ICD 10 compliance program and be ready by Oct 1, 2014. Broadly classified, each State may belong to one of the following categories based on their current state of remediation plan:
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Tracking to the plan of ICD 10 Go-Live by Oct 1, 2013
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Just started on ICD 10 and delayed by few months
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Procuring MMIS replacement and timing Go-Live of new ICD 10 compliant system by Oct 1, 2013
Most States would belong to the second category and additional time would help them complete their project tasks and be ready for Go-Live by Oct 1, 2014. States belonging to the first category can explore opportunity of dual support - ICD 9 and ICD 10, and Oct 1st 2014 can be a non-event. States that belong to the third category will be in a dilemma - they will have to plan to either support ICD 10 on their current MMIS or support ICD 9 on new MMIS, which would mean the tasks and costs they hadn't anticipated, will have to be planned for, now.
Irrespective of the above categories, each State now gets additional time and they should take a step back and review their financial neutrality strategy. Especially, States that were planning to get compliant first and then leverage the advantages of ICD 10 should now re-prioritize and re-focus as they remediate their systems.