Medical Billing Codes For Injury Via Turtle Among Thousands Created by New Law 380
A new government law has created an unusually precise list of injury codes for billing purposes. Currently there are 18,000 standard billing codes; the new law would expand that list to around 140,000. If you've been injured at the Opera, walked into a lamppost, pulled something while playing a trumpet, or have been attacked by a turtle, there's now a code for that. From the article: "The federal agencies that developed the system—generally known as ICD-10, for International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision—say the codes will provide a more exact and up-to-date accounting of diagnoses and hospital inpatient procedures, which could improve payment strategies and care guidelines. "It's for accuracy of data and quality of care," says Pat Brooks, senior technical adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
Flaming Skis (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorites:
V9107XA Burn due to water-skis on fire, initial encounter
V9107XD Burn due to water-skis on fire, subsequent encounter
V9107XS Burn due to water-skis on fire, sequela
Re:How does it actually work? (Score:3, Interesting)
We're talking about bureaucrats here. They never think about details like that.
I've dealt with similar nonsense when buliding systems before. Seven pages of codes to classify a file, most of which never get used because it was far too complicated for the users to figure out... and they don't think it's specific enough.
And I say that as a government employee. This type of nonsense goes on all the time.
Re:U.S. ICD-10 CM not the ICD-10 (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to clarify, ICD-10 is maintained by the WHO. The clinical modifications to the ICD-10 in the USA are known as "US ICD-10 CM". Yes, they are very stupid
However, from an epidemiological standpoint, having better information about the causes of health problems will allow better study of cause and effect relationships between wellness and disease, for example. Even if it is a pain to implement (there must be a code for that).