'Partial' Freeze for ICD-9, ICD-10 Code Updates Planned to Ease Transition
Full ICD-10 Implementation Set for Oct. 1, 2013
By News Staff
As part of the process of transitioning to the ICD-10 code set for outpatient diagnosis coding, the committee responsible for maintaining the ICD-10 and the current ICD-9 code sets in the United States announced it is putting a partial freeze on the codes before implementing ICD-10 on Oct. 1, 2013.
The ICD-9-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee announced (52-page PDF; About PDFs) during a regularly scheduled meeting on Sept. 15 that it was suspending regular updates to the ICD code sets to ease the industry's transition to ICD-10.
The partial freeze calendar looks like this:
The partial freeze calendar looks like this:
- Oct. 1, 2011: The last annual updates to ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 code sets will be instituted.
- Oct. 1, 2012: Limited code updates to ICD-9 and ICD-10 will be allowed only to capture new technologies and diseases.
- Oct. 1, 2013: Limited code updates to ICD-10 will be granted to capture new technologies and diseases.
- Oct. 1, 2013: ICD-9 will cease to exist for purposes of reporting.
- Oct. 1, 2014: Regular updates to ICD-10 resume.
The freeze has been dubbed "partial" to allow for the creation of codes needed to capture new technologies and diseases. For example, new codes were necessary when the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic arose in 2009.
Cynthia Hughes, C.P.C., an AAFP coding specialist, said the freeze was welcome news for the volumes of people training in ICD-10 protocol, particularly because the number of diagnosis codes will balloon from 14,315 in ICD-9-CM to 69,099 in ICD-10.
"There is now a sense of stability knowing the codes will be frozen for a period of time so that physicians, coders, nurses, billers and software developers have time to get familiar with this greatly expanded system," said Hughes.
Cynthia Hughes, C.P.C., an AAFP coding specialist, said the freeze was welcome news for the volumes of people training in ICD-10 protocol, particularly because the number of diagnosis codes will balloon from 14,315 in ICD-9-CM to 69,099 in ICD-10.
"There is now a sense of stability knowing the codes will be frozen for a period of time so that physicians, coders, nurses, billers and software developers have time to get familiar with this greatly expanded system," said Hughes.
