ICD-10 Implementation Testing Dates Announced

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that it will hold a national testing week for ICD-10-CM from March 3, 2014 through March 7, 2014.  This testing week will allow providers and durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers an opportunity to submit real-time claims to test the delivery and receipt of the new ICD-10-CM code format. 

The ICD-10 testing week has been established to create awareness and to offer assurance to the provider community that CMS and the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) are ready and prepared for the ICD-10 implementation. It also provides practitioners with a valuable method for testing their electronic claims submissions. The event will be conducted virtually and will be posted on each MAC's web site and the Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI) web site.  Each MAC will announce and actively promote the testing week via listserv messages.

This testing week will give trading partners access to the MACs and CEDI for testing with real-time help desk support. Each MAC will either provide a registration site or email address for the testing site at least four weeks prior to the testing week.  During this week, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) help desk support will be available daily to handle any increased call volume.

Providers and suppliers who submit claims during this week will receive electronic acknowledgement confirming that the submitted test claims were accepted or rejected.  After the testing week has ended, the MACs will report the number of participants and relative percentage of participants to CMS.  The contractor will also identify the percentage of test claims that were accepted and rejected, and any additional significant issues found during testing.

To find out more about Medicare Testing Week, see Change Request 8465