The proposed rule, , would implement several administrative simplifications to the Affordable Care Act, which would make it easier for doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies to identify patients and issue payments for treatment. The public comment period began Monday and continues for 30 days.

HHS also said the proposed rule would delay by one year the requirement for healthcare providers and insurers to implement the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases) medical coding system. The delay of ICD-10 was expected despite being criticized by healthcare professionals who say its use is long overdue.

ICD-10, which is designed to better track diagnoses and treatments, affects dozens of core software applications for healthcare providers and insurance payers. The move from ICD-9 to ICD-10, replaces about 15,000 medical codes of diseases with approximately 68,000 more specific ones.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), an organization representing healthcare CIOs, , which has been adopted by 25 other countries.

Hospitals and insurance providers are already under the gun to implement the so-called "" of electronic medical records and to update how medical transactions are processed, known as the Version 5010 standard.