HHS proposes delaying ICD-10 deadline to Oct. 1, 2014

A proposed rule from HHS pushes back by one year the compliance deadline for conversion to the International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision of diagnostic and procedural codes to Oct. 1, 2014. The rollback of the ICD-10 deadline was telegraphed by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in February.

Sebelius announced the new proposed deadline in an e-mailed news release from HHS. More details are available in a CMS fact sheet.

Also announced Monday, nearly 16 years after passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HHS has issued a proposed rule pursuant to a HIPAA mandate that all health insurance plans be numerically tagged with a unique health plan identifier.

The 198-page proposed rule (PDF) covers the suggested ICD-10 deadline change, as well.

The identifier could save providers and plans up to $4.6 billion over a decade, according to HHS' news release.

"The new healthcare law is cutting red tape, making our healthcare system more efficient and saving money," Sebelius said in the release. "These important simplifications will mean doctors can spend less time filling out forms and more time seeing patients."

The plan identifier is one of several numeric identifiers that were part of the "administrative simplification" section of HIPAA, which became law in August 1996. A national employer identifier became effective in 2005 and a national provider identifier took effect in 2007. A national patient identifier was blocked by Congress because of privacy concerns.