A History of ICD-9 and ICD-10 Essay Example

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The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is a system that utilizes an organized method for diagnoses and procedures. It was updated over a 10-year period, with the next version originally expected in 1985. However, multiple delays caused it to be released only in 1995 as ICD-9-CM or International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification. The official ICD-9 version was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland and has been responsible for updating and releasing new versions of ICD every decade since 1948.

The ICD classification system was developed to collect information about the occurrence and death rates of diseases. Originally utilized by hospitals for statistical objectives, there was a requirement for more effective methods of storing and retrieving diagnostic data. As a result, the Veterans Administration and U.S. Public Health Service worked together in 1950 to enhance the system.

The S. Public Health Service first pioneered the use of ICD for hospital indexing, which was then investigated independently. Following this, in 1956, the American Hospital Association and the American Association of Medical Records Librarians (now called the American Health Information Management Association) acknowledged the effectiveness and usefulness of ICD in organizing hospital documents. In 1979, ICD-9-CM replaced earlier versions.

The ICD-9-CM is an updated and unified classification system designed to comprehensively classify morbidity data in U.S. hospitals. It serves as an improvement on previous ICD systems, with diagnostic codes in Volumes 1 and 2 being updated by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and procedure codes in Volume 3 being updated annually by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Thanks to clinical modifications, patient encounters across the United States can

be accurately coded using the ICD-9-CM.

The US healthcare system underwent a significant change in 1988 when the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act made it compulsory for all claims submitted to the Medicare program to contain ICD-9-CM diagnostic codes. This resulted in private insurance companies following suit and also requiring submission of ICD-9-CM codes.

ICD-9-CM is designed to assign codes for a variety of healthcare services, including symptoms, disorders, diseases, examinations and other services provided by healthcare providers in order to accurately reflect the reason for the patient's visit. The use of diagnostic and procedure codes ensures that insurance companies have a comprehensive understanding of the purpose of the patient's visit as well as any rendered services, which is crucial for appropriate reimbursement. The International Classification of Diseases (ICC)-IO Tenth Revision was launched in 1994 after being endorsed by the Forty-third World Health Assembly in 1990. This classification series has its roots dating back to the 1850s.

The International List of Causes of Death was approved by the International Statistical Institute in 1893. The World Health Organization (WHO) later took over this list when it was established in 1948 and introduced the Sixth Revision which included causes of morbidity for the first time. In 1967, the World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Nomenclature Regulations and mandated that member states use the most recent ICD revision for mortality and morbidity statistics. However, due to its limited space, ICD-9-CM has encountered some problems.

Due to its organized framework, each classification section of three digits can only contain a maximum of 10 subdivisions. Although certain divisions have established diagnoses, some conditions lack codes due to recent medical innovations. ICD-9-CM comprises more than

17,000 codes while ICD-IO has over 141,000 codes to accommodate various novel procedures and diagnoses.

ICD-IO-CM shares similarities with ICD-9-CM in terms of guidelines, conventions, and rules while also having a similar code organization. This allows for an easy transition from coding ICD-9-CM to ICD-IO-CM. However, ICD-IO-CM comes with enhanced coding features that allow the reporting of both a disease and its current manifestation using one code.

The HTML-tagged text explains the distinctions made by ICD-IO-CM codes for different types of medical care. For example, the code distinguishes between initial, follow-up, and late effect care for fractures. Obstetrical codes also designate the trimester. Although some have criticized the increase in the number of ICD-IO-CM codes, some of this growth is simply due to coding for laterality.

Computer science can improve medical care by implementing detailed ICD-IO-CM codes that enhance disease analysis and treatment outcomes. The limitations of ICD-9-CM codes have been addressed with corresponding ICD-IO-CM codes, which identify four different codes for unspecified, right, left or bilateral ovarian conditions. These new codes not only improve diagnosis and treatment accuracy but also simplify claims submissions and help payers understand initial claims better. By October 1st, 2013, healthcare diagnoses and procedures must be reported using ICD-IO code sets as mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While some countries like the United States and Italy have not yet adopted this standard, most countries worldwide recognize ICD-IO as the universally accepted reporting standard.

Switching to ICD-IO-CM and ICD-IO-PCS for diagnostic code and inpatient procedural reporting respectively is a significant coding change. It will entail a notable increase in codes, with diagnostic codes going from 13,500 to 69,000 and inpatient

procedure codes increasing from 4,000 to 71,000. Despite the challenges of implementing these new practices, using ICD-IO codes can enhance claims processing and payment while also assisting healthcare professionals in making more accurate treatment decisions through precise matching of diagnoses and procedures with appropriate codes using healthcare technology that incorporates these codes. Ultimately, this advancement should benefit patients by improving healthcare quality through increased precision of reports on claims data.