AMA Seeks to Halt ICD-10 Implementation

The American Medical Association (AMA) today announced that its delegates have undertaken initiatives to halt the implementation of ICD-10. In a statement, AMA President Peter W. Carmel, MD attributed the move to the society’s perception that ICD-10 will pose significant burdens on the practice of medicine, with no direct benefits to individual patients’ care. Carmel noted that at the 65th Interim Meeting of the AMA in New Orleans, Louisiana, the AMA House of Delegates voted to “work vigorously to stop implementation of ICD-10,” based largely on its belief that “timing could not be worse” for a massive, expensive undertaking that would offer “too little benefit” to physicians and prove disruptive to practitioners as they also work to implement electronic health records (EHRs) and demonstrate Meaningful Use. Citing a 2008 study, the AMA explained within the statement that the projected investment entailed in adopting unfunded code under ICD-10 sets would cost a three-physician practice $84,000, while a 10-physician group would incur an expenditure of slightly more than $285,000 to accomplish the same objective.