eCQM ICD-10 January 2017 Update
Today, CMS released their special update on new ICD-10 CM codes for eCQMs. Typically, CMS makes updates to their measure definitions in the annual update period (generally around April-June), but this special update is just for some ICD-10 changes.
You can see the list of affected measures here on this page via January 2017 update as well as this specific link to the PDF. The ICD-10 codes used per measure are found at the VSAC site.
From the Technical Release PDF, each affected eCQM has its own page with a listing of the value set impacted by the changes and the changes made to the ICD-10 CM set. In some cases, just a few ICD-10 codes were added or removed. For example, CMS 117v5 (Childhood Immunization Status) has ICD-10 code Z22.51 removed now from its Hepatitis B value set.
In those cases, it can be relatively easy for a developer to make the changes to their database or eCQM value set library. For other measures, the changes are larger and require some more digging.
For example, with CMS 122v5 (Diabetes: Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) Poor Control (> 9%), its Diabetes value set has 156 new ICD10CM codes, but it does not list them all.
From what I can tell, for those with larger changes, there is not an especially easy way to see the list of specific codes added or removed. My suggested "hack" to see the ICD-10 codes affected in this update is as follows.
1. From the VSAC site, go to Downloads and download the eCQM Value Sets sorted by CMS ID in Excel for the January 06, 2017 update.
2. From same page, download the eCQM Value Sets sorted by CMS ID in Excel for the previous May 01, 2015 update.
3. Using Excel for both spreadsheets, find the respective measure you are interested in and then filter on the Code System column for ICD10CM.
4. Copy the ICD-10 codes and description from January 06, 2017 update into a new worksheet and then copy next to it the ICD-10 codes from the May 01, 2015 update.
5. Select both columns and then use the Excel "Conditional Formatting"->"Highlight Cell Rules"->"More Rules" option. Here is a Excel help page to explain this.
6. Choose "Format only unique" and make the condition some type of fill to distinguish the cells. Hit the OK button.
This will highlight the differences between the two columns. I don't classify it as super simple or elegant, but it is not too difficult and it works.
To give you an example, I focused on CMS 122v5 (Diabetes: Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) Poor Control (> 9%). It previously had 146 ICD-10 codes in its Diabetes value set, but now the new 2017 update contains 302 ICD-10 CM codes for a delta of 156 new codes. You can download this spreadsheet here to see the result.
