Merge Healthcare : Issues Statement on Sustainable Growth Rate Patch, ICD-10 Delay Bill Approval

Chicago, IL, 02 Apr 2014

Merge Healthcare Incorporated (NASDAQ: MRGE), a leading provider of innovative enterprise imaging, interoperability and clinical systems that seek to advance healthcare, today issued the following statement on the bill approval of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) and ICD-10 delay to October 1, 2015.

"Since the House passed the SGR bill including a year-long delay to ICD-10 on March 27th, the healthcare world has been buzzing with chatter - from those in agreement to those opposing a delay. On April 2nd, President Barack Obama officially signed the temporary SGR "doc fix" delaying the compliance date of ICD-10 until October 1, 2015. Merge remains committed to continuing our focus of preparing customers for regulation change and will move forward with previously scheduled product releases," said Justin Dearborn, CEO at Merge Healthcare. "ICD-10 implementation is an important piece of value-based care models and most importantly delivering quality care to patients; therefore, it should remain a priority for the healthcare industry. With the delay in place, we urge customers to focus on surrounding reform initiatives, including Meaningful Use (MU). ICD-10 and MU are complementary initiatives, and we recommend providers pursue both hand in hand. In addition, it's important for customers to ensure that they are up-to-date with the ONC 2014 Edition certified electronic health record regulations for MU and ICD-10. These regulations are in place to benefit providers and patients, and we strongly recommend moving forward now for the smoothest transition possible. We are dedicated to working with our customers to overcome these unforeseen and unplanned challenges."

Merge Financials™, a practice management solution to automate the back office, and Merge RIS™, an outpatient radiology information system designed to meet MU requirements, currently contain ICD-10 ready features for customers. 

About Merge
Merge is a leading provider of innovative enterprise imaging, interoperability and clinical systems that seek to advance healthcare. Merge's enterprise and cloud-based technologies for image intensive specialties provide access to any image, anywhere, any time. Merge also provides clinical trials software with end-to-end study support in a single platform and other intelligent health data and analytics solutions. With solutions that have been used by providers for more than 25 years, Merge is helping to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and enhance the quality of healthcare worldwide. For more information, visit merge.com and follow us @MergeHealthcare.

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