On April 1, President Obama signed the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014. This legislation extends current Medicare physician reimbursement rates and delays implementation of the ICD-10 code for a full year. Previously, hospitals were to be ICD-10 compliant by October 1, 2014; this delay moves the compliance deadline to October 1, 2015.

Additionally, the bill also delays the moratorium on the CMS two-midnight policy through March 2015. This delay means that Recovery Audit Contractors cannot audit inpatient hospital claims from October 1, 2013 through March 31, 2015. The two-midnight rule holds that an admitted inpatient is presumed “reasonable and necessary” only if the patient stays at the hospital for at least two midnights.