News Feature | June 26, 2015

CMS Releases Round 2 ICD-10 Testing Results

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

CMS Reports ICD-10 End-To-End Testing Results

The latest tests show 88 percent of claims approved in latest end-to-end testing.

As the ICD-10 transition deadline grows closer, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released results of the latest end-to-end testing, finding 88 percent of claims were approved. CMS asserts results of this latest round of testing demonstrate the industry is on track for theOct. 1 transition.

CMS established the testing periods to allow providers to determine whether or not ICD-10 codes submitted by Medicare would be accepted by the program, essentially testing the provider’s readiness for the transition. Of the claims that were submitted, half were professional, 43 percent were institutional, and 7 percent were supplier claims.

The CMS second end-to-end testing period ran from April 27 to May 1 and included 875 participants including billing agencies, clearing houses, and payers. During this trial, 23, 138 test claims were received and 20,306 were accepted, according to Healthcare Informatics. During the first ICD-10 end-to-end testing week which took place from Jan. 26 through Feb. 3, 81 percent of claims were accepted.

According to the CMS results, most participants were able to send ICD-10 claims effectively, and Medicare’s billing system managed to process claims without significant problems. In fact, the acceptance rate in April was higher than the rate achieved in round one of the end-to-end testing that took place in January with fewer errors related to diagnosis codes.

There will be one final round of end-to-end testing, from July 20 to July 24. CMS is encouraging providers who would like to participate in ICD-10 testing to do acknowledgement testing, according to EHR Intelligence. This type of testing can be done at any point prior to the Oct.1 deadline.