While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has repeatedly said this year that October 1, 2015, will be the firm and final deadline for implementing ICD-10 — and that it won't be delayed another day past that — many in the healthcare industry have taken a "We'll believe it when we see it" approach. And could you blame them? ICD-10 has been delayed three times already, with CMS saying each one would be the last. Consequently, clinics and practices across the U.S. are now years behind many other countries in terms of up-to-date chiropractic EHR and diagnostic codes.

At its 2014 conference in San Diego, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) addressed this very subject and issued a veritable call to arms among its attendees that the industry would not tolerate any further dawdling on ICD-10. As the healthcare IT news source, Health Data Management, notes, the AHIMA prompted its 71,000 members over the summer to barrage Congress with thousands of letters and phone calls urging the importance of strictly adhering to the 2015 deadline.

The association reasserted its stance on this matter at the San Diego convention, highlighting not only the importance of implementing ICD-10 but the financial and logistical dangers that yet another extension could present.

"We know that our industry partners are too heavily invested in the future to allow another postponement. There is no way," Lynne Thomas Gordon, AHIMA CEO, told the crowd. "The ICD-10 experience has taught us so much about advocacy. We know how to stand up for ourselves. We know how to stand up for our patients, and we are not our mothers' AHIMA anymore." 

Invest in the best chiropractic EHR software today to ensure that your clinic's coding needs are ready for tomorrow.