CMS announces ICD-10 testing week

ICD-9 code sets used to report medical diagnoses and inpatient procedures will be replaced by ICD-10 code sets on Oct. 1, 2014. CMS has announced a national ICD-10 testing week to help direct submitters (clinicians and clearinghouses) with the transition to the new codes.

The testing, occurring March 3-7, 2014, will give trading partners access to the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) and Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI) for testing with real-time help-desk support. The event will be conducted virtually. Registration is required, and CMS will be posting that information closer to the event.

During testing, you can expect the following:

• Test claims with ICD-10 codes must be submitted with current dates of service (i.e., Oct. 1, 2013, through March 3, 2014), since testing does not support future-dated claims.
• Test claims will receive the 277CA or 999 acknowledgment as appropriate to confirm that the claim was accepted or rejected in the system.
• Testing will not confirm claim payment or produce remittance advice.
• MACs and CEDI will be staffed to handle increased call volume during this week.

More information is available in the MLN Matters^®article MM8465, “ICD-10 Testing with Providers through the Common Edits and Enhancements Module (CEM) and Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI).”

ACP will also offer an ICD-10 Boot Camp as a precourse at Internal Medicine 2014 in Orlando this coming April. Expert faculty will discuss the nuts and bolts of using the new coding system, what practices need to do to implement it, how to document care to support it, and the different implications for professional fee billing and facility billing. The precourse will also cover how ICD-10 will affect the metrics now being applied by Medicare and other payers to rate clinicians and their practices. More information on the precourse is available online.