Endocrine Insider
October 16, 2008 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will host a national provider call for physicians on November 17 to provide an overview of the proposed transition to ICD-10 diagnosis coding from the current system, ICD-9. In August, CMS proposed that the system currently used to code inpatient and outpatient medical diagnoses was outdated and that a system update to ICD-10 should be implemented by October 2011. The Society has jointly sent letters with various other medical specialty societies asking that the implementation date for ICD-10 be delayed to accommodate the significant amount of planning and software updates that the change will require.

 The focus of the CMS provider call will be to provide a greater understanding of the major impacts of the change and to give some information about things to consider when planning system updates from ICD-9 to ICD-10. Issues such as differences in code length, alpha-numeric characters, and increased details captured by the codes will be explained, and information on future reporting, system updates, and training will be provided.

The CMS phone call will take place November 17 from 12:30 –2:30 p.m. EST. For more information on the call, including background information, presentation slides, and registration (forthcoming), please go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ICD10/07_Sponsored_Calls.asp.