“Moving to these new code sets has the potential to be the most complex change for the U.S. health care system in decades,” Dr. William F. Jessee, president and CEO of MGMA, said in a statement.
Officials at the American College of Physicians were still analyzing the CMS proposal at press time, but said they continue to have concerns about the switch to ICD-10. In a letter to CMS in January 2007, ACP said it opposes the change to ICD-10 for outpatient diagnosis coding and that such a switch would be expensive and time consuming for physicians, especially those in small practices. For some practices, the adoption of ICD-10 would require purchasing a completely new practice management system, which could cost anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000.