Dr. William Jeff Terry, Past President of the Alabama Medical Association,Champion of the Stop ICD10 movement, passed away in August,2015. Dr. Terry seen above testifying before congress, served as the inspiration for this petition. Despite the fact that ICD10 was implemented on 10/1/15. We continue the fight!

We expect our doctors to devote their full attention and skills to us as patients. Doctors have been handed increasing administrative burdens by our government and insurance companies.  Data collection through "Meaningful use" and "PQRS" quality measures, as well as prior authorization and referral requests are already a heavy burden on your doctor's time, energy and financial resources.

The ICD system enables your doctor to translate your diagnosis to a numeric code that your insurance company will understand in order to pay your claim.  It also is used to generate statistical and epidemiological data.  It does not help your physician to treat an individual patient.  That’s it! 

ICD10 was implemented 10/1/15 over the protests of physicians.The previous ICD 9 code set contained 13,000 codes of 3-5 digits.  The ICD 10 code set has 68,000 codes of 4-7 digits.  Diabetes alone is expressed by 250 codes.  The code set includes obscure codes such as: V91.07XA - burned due to water skis on fire - initial encounter.

Although the ICD system is used by other countries, only the United States uses ICD codes for billing and payment purposes and only the U.S. uses it in the outpatient setting in physicians’ offices. 

The transition to ICD 10 will be a costly one for doctors, especially small practices.  Some doctors will retire early or leave clinical practice.  Many patients will lose their doctor.  The catastrophic impact of ICD 10 should not be underestimated.  ICD 10 should be STOPPED and the option of filing claims with ICD9 should be returned until physician concerns are addressed and a plan can be implemented to preserve the patient-physician relationship.

Please help by urging our Senators and Representatives to halt the continued implementation of ICD10.