CMS Says 2nd I-10 End-to-End Testing a Success

By Brad Ericson, MPC, CPC, COSC

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is crowing about what it says was another successful ICD-10 end-to-end testing, April  27 through May 1.

The agency said Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) health care providers, clearinghouses, and billing agencies participated in a second successful ICD-10 end-to-end testing week with all Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) and the Durable Medical Equipment (DME) MAC Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI) contractor. CMS accommodated most volunteers, representing a broad cross-section of provider, claim, and submitter types.

CMS said this second end-to-end testing week demonstrated that CMS systems are ready to accept ICD-10 claims. Approximately 875 providers and billing companies participated, and testers submitted over 23,000 test claims.

The agency said that overall, participants in the April end-to-end testing week were able to successfully submit ICD-10 test claims and have them processed through Medicare billing systems. The acceptance rate for April was higher than January, with an increase in test claims submitted and a decrease in the percentage of errors related to diagnosis codes. Most of the claim rejections that occurred were due to errors unrelated to ICD-9 or ICD-10.

In addition to acknowledgement testing, which may be completed at any time, a final end-to-end testing week will be held on July 20 through 24, 2015. The opportunity to volunteer for this testing week has closed. Testers who participated in the January and April end-to-end testing weeks are automatically eligible to test again in July.

Medicare claims with a date of service on or after October 1, 2015, will be rejected if they do not contain a valid ICD-10 code. The Medicare claims processing systems do not have the capability to accept ICD-9 codes for dates of service after September 30, 2015; or accept claims that contain both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes

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Brad Ericson

Director of Publishing at AAPC

Brad Ericson, MPC, CPC, COSC, has been director of publishing since 2007. Before AAPC he was at Optum for 13 years and Aetna Health Plans prior to that. He has been writing and publishing about healthcare since 1979. He received his Bachelor's in Journalism from Idaho State University and his Master's of Professional Communication degree from Westminster College of Salt Lake City.

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