During the first of three special testing weeks, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will be conducting testing to determine whether physicians’ ICD-10 claims will be accepted into the Medicare claims processing system, Nov. 17-21. Physicians who participate will receive real-time help desk support.
Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) will be facilitating the testing. While registration is not required to participate, physicians can contact their MACs for more information about how to submit test claims.
Physicians who use a clearinghouse or billing service should contact them to learn more about their plans for testing with Medicare and determine how they will receive test results for their claims.
Two additional ICD-10 claims acknowledgment testing weeks will take place next year:
- March 2-6
- June 1-5
Participation in testing will help physician practices determine its readiness for this portion of ICD-10 implementation and provide data for CMS’ own preparation for industry-wide use of the code set.
Although acknowledgement testing is important for identifying any issues with claims being accepted by Medicare, physicians will not be able to test the complete processing of the claim or determine final payment at this time. CMS will be conducting more robust end-to-end testing with a limited number of physicians and other health care providers next year. More information can be found on the AMA ICD-10 Web page, which the AMA will be updating as additional details become available.
The AMA continues to urge regulators to ease the burden of ICD-10 implementation on physicians, citing dramatic implementation costs coupled with an already onerous regulatory environment. However, practice management experts caution that physicians now should begin preparing their practices for the transition to ICD-10.
To help with the testing process, the AMA has developed an ICD-10 data file available on CD-ROM or via immediate download. Additional information and resources to help physicians get ready for ICD-10 are available on the AMA ICD-10 Web page.
