Stakeholders are at odds over whether the Oct. 1 deadline for ICD-10 implementation should be pushed back, reports the National Law Review, but for the most part, they agree on one thing — if Congress pushes through a bill that delays ICD-10, it's going to come at a cost for the larger commercial entities.
What complicates matters farther, however, is that implementation of the new medical coding system could come at a steep cost for smaller providers — estimates place that price tag at up to $227,000.
An American Medical Association report last year shows that implementation could cost small physician practices between $22,000 and $106,000 (with the total cost between $56,000 and $227,000.
In turn, larger companies in total could lose billions of dollars.
The Department of Health and Human Services said that any further delays in the ICD-10 deadline would be very costly for the larger entities that have already invested time and money into compliance plans.
The agency estimated that between $1 billion to $7 billion would be lost across the industry in the event of a yearlong delay.
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