The American Medical Association, the nation's largest physician organization, has voted to oppose the adoption of the new ICD-10 coding system that is scheduled to take effect on Oct. 1, 2013. The vote took place at the AMA's semi-annual policymaking meeting in New Orleans.
The AMA, which represents about one-fourth of U.S. doctors, cited high costs, paltry patient benefits and bad timing. ICD-10 has about 69,000 codes and will replace the aging 14,000 ICD-9 diagnosis codes that doctors, hospitals and ASCs currently use to bill insurers. The new codes are said to make it easier to describe advanced surgeries and procedures that generally command higher reimbursement rates. Doctors, however, complain that changing to the new system will eat up time and money.
"The implementation of ICD-10 will create significant burdens on the practice of medicine with no direct benefit to individual patients' care," said Peter W. Carmel, MD, the AMA's president. "At a time when we are working to get the best value possible for our health care dollar, this massive and expensive undertaking will add administrative expense and create unnecessary workflow disruptions. The timing could not be worse as many physicians are working to implement electronic health records into their practices. We will continue working to help physicians keep their focus where it should be - on their patients."
A 2008 study found that a small, 3-physician practice would need to spend $83,290 to implement ICD-10, while a 10-physician practice would pay $285,195 to make the coding change, says the AMA.
Dan O'Connor
