The revised compliance date for providers, payers and clearinghouses to transition to ICD-10 has been finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services. It's Oct. 1, 2015 – just 14 months from today.

[See also: 3 common ICD-10 myths, debunked]

Four months ago, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of – and President Barack Obama soon signed – the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014. Primarily meant to forestall cuts in Medicare payment rates for physicians, the bill also contained a little-debated component, of mysterious provenance, that called for delaying ICD-10 implementation until 2015 at the earliest.

[See also: ICD-10 delay comes at a price]

For an industry that had been working near-feverishly to prepare for a deadline later this fall, on Oct. 1, 2014, this development came as something of a surprise, throwing the plans of countless healthcare organizations back into flux as the certainty of an approaching deadline vanished.

On May 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services put out a statement indicating that the switchover deadline would be extended a year, and noted that HHS "expects to release an interim final rule in the near future that will include a new compliance date that would require the use of ICD-10 beginning Oct. 1, 2015."

Well, here we are. The hope, of course, is that all these extra months will allow the industry, especially physician practices, "ample time to prepare for change," CMS noted, helping them implement and test the necessary systems and processes to ensure a smooth transition next fall.

But there's also no telling how the delay may have dissipated the sense of urgency that had been there just this past spring.

"ICD-10 codes will provide better support for patient care, and improve disease management, quality measurement and analytics," said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in a press statement announcing the finalization. "For patients under the care of multiple providers, ICD-10 can help promote care coordination."

The American Health Information Management Association lauded the final rule.

"Now, everyone in the healthcare community has the necessary certainty to move forward with their implementation processes, including testing and training," said AHIMA officials in a press statement – adding that, "regardless of where an organization is in the implementation process, AHIMA is available to help with information, training, and technical assistance and support."