The compliance deadline for ICD-10 is October 1, 2014. CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner has affirmed the ICD-10 deadline and encourages providers, payers, and vendors across the health care industry to prepare to use the new codes for services provided on or after October 1, 2014.  

Months after a high-profile fight to renew Georgia's provider fee, the hospital industry is again concerned about the fee's fate.

This time, the source of the industry's anxiety is not the state Capitol, but Washington.

As the fiscal standoff intensified last month, the Republican House leadership at one point pushed repealing such Medicaid provider assessments, including those for nursing homes, according to hospital industry officials.

Other speculation has centered on the feds lowering the provider tax rates that a state can use to gain extra dollars for Medicaid.

That's why local hospital and nursing home groups, along with their national associations, have recently sounded alarms over possible federal attempts at changing these assessments. The fees are used in 49 states to boost funding for Medicaid programs.