Another ICD-10 bill calls for 2-year grace period

Latest law proposed in the House of Representatives would keep physicians or other healthcare providers from being penalized for coding errors. The bill was introduced on June 4th to allow for a two-year grace period for doctors and other healthcare providers in submitting claims for reimbursement, the latest attempt at legislation to deal with the Oct. 1, 2015 rollout of ICD-10. The bill H.R. 2652, called “Protecting Patients and Physicians Against the Coding Act of 2015” has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. ICD-10 is scheduled to be implemented on Oct. 1, with no transition period for the current billing codes under ICD-9. The bill proposes to give coding errors a pass for two years, meaning no claims submitted to CMS would be denied based on the use of ICD-9 codes. The legislation is the third ICD-10-related bill to be introduced into the House of Representatives in the last five weeks. On May 12, H.R. 2247, the Increasing Clarity for Doctors by Transitioning Effectively Now Act (ICD-TEN Act) was introduced calling for an ICD-10 transition period.  On April 30, H.R. 2126, the Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2015 was introduced seeking to outright stop the replacement of ICD-9 with ICD-10. These recent bills calling for a delay or transition to ICD-10 have gone nowhere, to date.