The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that will delay the transition from the ICD-9 code sets to the ICD-10 code sets.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill (pdf) into law, according to numerous reports.
The bill pushes back the compliance deadline for ICD-10 from Oct. 1, 2014, to Oct. 1, 2015, at the earliest.
This is not the first time implementation of ICD-10 has been delayed. In August 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it approved a one-year delay from Oct. 1, 2013, to Oct. 1, 2014
In the bill, the Senate also approved the so-called “doc fix” that suspends the Medicare sustainable growth rate formula for one year. The House had approved the bill last week. It is the 17th time Congress has temporarily delayed cuts of nearly 24 percent to physician reimbursement under Medicare.