10/01/2020

ICD-10 Changes Effective October 1st

New Codes Must Be Used for Any Date of Service On or After October 1st

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted the 2021 ICD-10-CM final code changes. Since the CDC is a government entity that works on the federal fiscal year (FY), these changes take effect Thursday, October 1, 2020, and run through September 30, 2021. To be valid, the new codes must be used for any date of service on or after October 1^st. (Please note: This is on a different schedule than CPT® codes, which update each January 1^st.)

The final update includes hundreds of new ICD-10-CM codes, including some new diagnosis codes – and some discontinued codes – used by chiropractors, including new codes for headaches, TMJ, and more. For more information, see the following:

• KMC University: “ICD-10 Changes for 2020-2021-Effective October 1, 2020,” by Rebecca Scott, CPC, September 28, 2020
• ChiroCode Institute: “ICD-10-CM 2021 Coding Updates for Chiropractic,” by Wyn Staheli, Director of Research, September 29, 2020
• Dynamic Chiropractic: “ICD-10 Updates for 2021,” by Samuel A. Collins, October 1, 2020, edition