Our Readiness

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) made plans to meet all mandated timelines and requirements.

For ICD-10, we followed implementation guidelines that were adopted as part of the industry coalition comprising the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc. (NCHICA), the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the American Association of Professional Coders (AAPC) and others. The implementation guidelines specify recommended schedules for providers, vendors and payers.

BCBSTX implemented system and business process changes to accommodate transactions with ICD-10 codes. End-to-end testing of electronic claim submissions from selected providers was conducted during the 2nd and 3rd Quarters of 2015. For dates of service or inpatient discharge dates on or after Oct. 1, 2015, we are using a "pure" environment (i.e., processing and business rules based on the ICD-10 codes). During an appropriate run-out period, we will continue to process ICD-9 transactions through our existing environment for dates of service or inpatient discharge dates prior to Oct. 1, 2015.