(Updated at 2:20pm on Aug. 27)

CMS today posted a rule in the Federal Register that finalizes the proposed one-year delay for the ICD-10 code set.

The official compliance date will be Oct. 1, 2014.

“I’m really glad they finally gave us a date,” says Ann Rambusch, president of Rambusch3 Consulting in Georgetown, Texas. Agencies should use the additional time to examine policies and procedures and determine what changes they may need to accommodate ICD-10, she says.

In the rule, CMS argues that the one-year delay is the least costly and burdensome of all the options it considered.

Those options included:

  • Sticking with the Oct. 1, 2013 transition date;
  • Delaying only ICD-9-CM and leaving the 2013 date in place for ICD-10-PCS;
  • Jumping over ICD-10 and going straight to ICD-11;
  • Delaying all components of ICD-10 until 2014.

CMS went with the fourth option because it will minimize lost investment for those providers which have already started to prepare, while still giving other providers time to get ready, according to the final rule.

The rule also adopts a proposed standard for a national health plan identifier. This requirement will require changes from health plans, but should actually be good news for providers, CMS says. "The [health plan identifier] is expected to yield the most benefits for providers, while health plans will bear most of the costs."

For providers, the identifier will cut down on administrative time spent confirming which of multiple identifiers should be used in a transaction, the federal Medicare agency argues. 

Find the final rule at http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2012-21238_PI.pdf.