AMA sends letter to Congress opposing transition to ICD-10 codes

The American Medical Association sent a letter to Congress last week urging lawmakers to stop the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's required implementation of the ICD-10 code set. The letter called on stakeholders to find a replacement for ICD-9. The AMA said implementation of ICD-10 would require doctors and office staff to contend with 68,000 codes; they now work with 13,000 codes. Conversion to ICD-10 would create significant burdens on the practice of medicine with no direct benefit to individual patient care, the AMA said. The letter also said implementation of ICD-10 will compete with other costly transitions associated with quality and health information technology (IT) reporting programs. Physicians face an Oct. 1, 2013, compliance deadline for the ICD-10 code set.