The American Medical Association (AMA) will be taking a serious look at the idea of ending a costly, long-planned shift to a new billing code version and instead shifting to an even newer version that's supposed to be available for beta testing in 2015.
The House of Delegates at the AMA, Chicago, voted earlier this week at a meeting in Chicago to evaluate the idea of replacing the current billing code standard, the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Edition (ICD-9), with the upcoming ICD-11 standard.
Federal law now calls for doctors, hospitals, health insurers to switch to the ICD-10 system by Oct. 1, 2013. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says it will be pushing back the compliance deadline, likely to Oct. 1, 2014.
The Georgia delegation at the AMA's House of Delegates has suggested that skipping ICD-10 could save physicians time and money while producing better results.
The policy the AMA House adopted calls for the AMA to evaluate ICD-11 as a possible alternative for replacing ICD-9 and to report back to the House in 2013.
