From Jan. 26 through Feb. 3, 2015, Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) health care providers, clearinghouses, and billing agencies participated in the first successful ICD-10 end-to-end testing week with all Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) and the Durable Medical Equipment (DME) MAC Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI) contractor. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was able to accommodate all volunteers, which represented a broad cross-section of provider, claim, and submitter types.
Approximately 660 providers and billing companies submitted nearly 15,000 test claims. This successful week of testing continues to put us on course for successful implementation of this important initiative that better reflects modern practice of medicine by Oct. 1, 2015.
Testing demonstrated that CMS systems are ready to accept ICD-10 claims. View the results.
Overall, participants in the Jan. 26 to Feb. 3 testing were able to successfully submit ICD-10 claims and have them processed through our billing systems. To the extent that some claims were rejected, most didn’t meet the mark because of errors unrelated to ICD-9 or ICD-10.
Testing allows us to identify areas of improvement, and we will work with outside entities and stakeholders to improve those very small deficiencies identified. And, we will continue to do testing, especially in those areas we identify as needing improvement.
In addition to acknowledgement testing, which may be completed at any time, two more end-to-end testing weeks will be held before the Oct. 1, 2015, compliance date for ICD-10:
- April 27 through May 1: Volunteers have been selected
- July 20 through July 24: Volunteer forms will be available March 13 on the MAC and CEDI websites
- Testers who participated in the January testing are automatically eligible to test again in April and July
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