The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) officially finalized the first major updates to ICD-10. CMS added just under 2,000 new codes, revised about 400 codes and deleted about 300 codes, according to experts who analyzed data posted to the CMS website.
The agency published the official code changes and impactful revisions in tabular instruction for ICD-10 on its website Wednesday—and there are more than 3,000 alterations in total. All changes are scheduled to begin when the FY2017 code set goes into effect on October 1, 2016.
Coding areas most effected by CMS’ changes include Chapter 19, which deals with injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes; Chapter 13, which deals with diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue; and Chapter 4, which deals with endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, according to DecisionHealth’s Home Health Line.
CMS also made many changes to ICD-10 tabular instructions. Specific Excludes 1 notes, for example, have been switched to Excludes 2 notes, echoing the guidance change late last year that permitted conditions excluded by Excludes 1 notes to be coded together as long as they weren’t related, Home Health Line reported.
CMS published the final full addenda list on its website, along with a revised tabular, alphabetic index, table of drugs and chemicals, neoplasm table and index of external causes.
ICD-10, implemented in most states in October 2015, was created as a means for home health providers to keep up with the health care system’s increasing data demands and new advancements in medicine. The implementation was met with industry backlash upon rollout.
Written by Mary Kate Nelson
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