On October 1, 2014, the United States health care system will undergo a major transformation. We will transition from the decades-old Ninth Edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) set of diagnosis and inpatient procedure codes to the Tenth Edition of those code sets—or ICD-10. The Tenth Edition is the version currently used by most developed countries throughout the world. ICD-10 allows for greater specificity and detail in describing a patient’s diagnosis and in classifying inpatient procedures, so reimbursement can better reflect the intensity of the patient’s condition and diagnostic needs. This transition will have a major impact on anyone who uses health care information that contains a diagnosis and/or inpatient procedure code, including hospitals, physicians, other providers, payers, clearinghouses, billing companies, etc. The change will affect all covered entities as defined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Covered entities are required to adopt...

Another dragon is slinking away, although it isn’t yet slain.  On February 15, 2012, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius announced that “HHS will initiate a process to postpone the date by which certain health care entities have to comply with International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10).” In other words, medical practices no longer need to ensure that they will be ready for ICD-10 by October 2013. The press release noted that the final regulation adopting ICD-10 as a standard was published in January 2009, and that it set a compliance date of October 1, 2013 (itself a delay of two years from the compliance date initially specified in the 2008 proposed rule).  HHS has not given any hint regarding a new compliance deadline.  ICD-10 is a set of codes used to identify and describe diagnoses (ICD-10-CM) and procedures (ICD-10-PCS), replacing ICD-9. It will...