A new bill introduced into the US House of Representatives introduced by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL-6) on June 4 proposes a two-year “grace period” for accepting codes submitted in ICD-10-CM/PCS. The bill, H.R. 2652, Protecting Patients and Physicians Against Coding Act of 2015, would establish a two-year ICD-10 grace period during which physicians and other health care providers submitting claims and other documents using ICD–10 are not penalized for errors, mistakes, and malfunctions relating to the transition to such code set. The bill currently has 32 co-sponsors and has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the Committee on Ways and Means.
AHIMA -Grace Period Would Lead to Inaccurate Coding
AHIMA officials has released a statement against the new bill stating the 2-year grace period would lead to the following issues:
1. Inaccurate coding
2. Improper payments/claims
3. Potential medical billing fraud
Additionally, allowance of miscoding on claims will render claims data useless for any purpose, AHIMA officials said. According to CMS ICD-10 end-to-end testing results, only two percent of claims were rejected due to ICD-10 coding errors during the most recent testing period, which ran April 27 to May 1.
The bill is the third ICD-10-related bill to be introduced into the House of Representatives over the past few weeks.
