A new bill would not require a transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 code sets. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) introduced the bill dubbed the "Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2013."
The bill prohibits the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services from enforcing a switch to ICD-10, and also calls for the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study to "identify steps that can be taken to mitigate the disruption on healthcare providers resulting from a replacement of ICD-9."
Poe is a fifth-term Republican who’s a member of the Tea Party Caucus. He cites the nine ICD-10 codes for various turkey injuries as just one example of the unnecessary specificity of the new coding system.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.