ICD-10 test identifies problem with remittance advice

Some more information about Medicare’s January end-to-end testing of the upcoming switch to ICD-10 coding: About 6 percent of the test claims couldn’t generate a remittance advice for the testing health care provider.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says its ICD-10 system generated remittance advice letters for the vast majority of test claims. It blamed the rare miscues on technical problems in the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) testing environments and said that some of the problems were not connected to ICD-10 coding.

Physicians and other providers who didn’t get a remittance advice in January will be able to resubmit those claims during the upcoming end-to-end testing weeks in April and July.

CMS said the MACs are setting up their systems for the next test and are expected to resolve all of the technical issues by then. Physicians and other providers must switch to ICD-10 coding on Oct. 1.

If you would like to participate in the July 20-24 end-to-end test, volunteer forms are due April 17. Those forms are available through your local MAC.

If you want to learn more about how to code using ICD-10, this collection of ICD-10 articles from Family Practice Management can help.