Eighty-eight percent of test claims were accepted during the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid's second round of ICD-10 testing in April, the agency announced Tuesday.
That compares with an 81 percent acceptance rate from the first round of testing, which began in January.
About 875 providers, clearinghouses and billing agencies participated in the second round of testing. CMS received 23,138 test claims and accepted 20,306, according to statistics unveiled by the agency.
It also reported that 2 percent of test claims were rejected due to invalid submission of ICD-10 diagnosis or procedure code, and that less than 1 percent were rejected due to invalid submission of ICD-9 code. Other rejections were not related to ICD-10, according to CMS, and instead included incorrect National Provider Identifiers (NPI), health insurance claim numbers or submitter IDs, or dates of service outside the range valid for testing.
In addition to acknowledgement testing, which may be completed at any time, a final end-to-end testing week will be held July 20-24. The opportunity to volunteer for this testing week has closed, though those who participated in the January and April testing are automatically eligible to participate again in July.
In the guidance available to providers, clearinghouses and others, CMS explains that while acknowledgement testing is open to all electronic submitters, end-to-end testing is limited to a smaller sample of submitters who volunteer and are selected to take part.
Health systems and other organizations have been urging lawmakers to implement ICD-10 without delay, while the American Medical Association has come out in support of legislation proposed by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) that aims to ban the use of ICD-10.
The AMA led a coalition of 100 physician groups that expressed concern about the ICD-10 transition in the letter to Acting CMS Administrator Andrew Slavitt. Testing was one of the association's major issues, saying end-to-end testing will only be conducted with "a small fraction of all Medicare providers and an even smaller universe of claims submitted each year."
To learn more:
- read the announcement
- check out the statistics