CMS Conducting End-to-End ICD-10 Testing

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid has announced that it will offer a group of providers an end-to-end ICD-10 testing. This will be done for checking either the payers are ready for upgrade ICD-10 code sets, or this testing will be done only with the limited number of providers, according to the Group Management Association (MGMA).

 

CMS Conducting End-to-End ICD-10 Testing

MGMA appreciates CMS to develop this testing approach scope to make possible for any provider who wants to test with them, as well as immediately distributing results from all the testing efforts of Medicare and Medicaid.

This most forceful testing is authoritative to identify the possible problems which are similar to experienced which was faced, with the healthcare.gov. Meanwhile it will also help to reduce the possibility of the disturbance of catastrophic cash flow which can impact on the ability of practices during the treatment of patients.

MGMA recommends that the practices of physicians are continuing for the preparation of the transition to ICD-10 and also provide resources and tools for the support of members to meet with this difficult challenge. ICD-10 requires thorough details about the location of ailments, type and cause and difficulties or displays which are compared with ICD-9.

According to the CMS documents, complete end-to-end testing will include the test claims submission to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid with ICD-10 codes and the receipt of provider of a Remittance Advice (RA) which explains the claims adjustments. The agency sets some goals, which includes;

·        Submitters and Providers are successfully submitting claims which also contain ICD-10 codes to the claim system of Medicare Fee-For-Service

·        Changes have been made by the CMS Software to support the result of ICD-10 in suitably adjustable claims

·        Production of accurate Remittance Advice

The agency is also offering the acknowledgment testing of ICD-10 which allow billing companies and providers to control if CMS will be able to admit their ICD-10 codes claims. Meanwhile these claims will not be judged either they are going to be accepted or rejected, this will be confirmed by Medicare administrative contractors.

The importance of this transition is according to the expectation. The economic impact of the ICD-10 transition on medical providers will be beyond the expectations, of about billions of dollars. As early as Medicare or Medicaid possibly transition to any new analytical coding method, CMS must have to establish the perfect metrics and also perform the system-wide tests for the certification of its willingness.

This makes the American Medical Association to criticize, which published a report concluding that implementation costs of ICD-10 will be expensive more than expectations in fact beyond the estimate which was done previously for physician practices.

That change of scenario by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid may also cause by the criticism of the American Medical Association which currently published a report about the implementation costs of ICD-10 for their practices that will be beyond the expectations.