The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has announced that HHS has made final the proposed one year delay in ICD-10 implementation from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014. Make sure to register for the OMA’s Sept. 6 webinar “ICD-10: What's the Big Deal? What You Need to Know and Do Now” to find out how the final rule will impact your practice.
HHS’s announcement also included the final rule adopting the standard for a national unique health plan identifier (HPID). According to HHS, the HPID is expected to benefit health care providers by “producing savings from two indirect consequences of implementation of the HPID: the cost avoidance of a decrease in administrative time spent by physician practices interacting with health plans; and a material cost savings through automation of processes for every transaction that moves from a manual transaction to an electronic transaction.” Health plans are required to obtain HPIDs by 2014, while small health plans will have until 2015. Click here for more information on this announcement.