Physician and state medical societies are urging Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, to refrain from setting a date prior to 2012 for the implementation of the ICD-10 coding system in the conference report on healthcare IT. The physicians emphasize that making the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 would unnecessarily burden physician offices with an additional cost of upgrading or replacing practice management systems and training billing and coding staff at the same time they are grappling with the costs and challenges of implementing new clinical IT systems. In addition, the physicians point out, private payers and the federal government will also be required to upgrade their own processing and data management systems to accommodate the transition.
