ICD in Medical Coding
What are ICD-10 codes and why are they important for doctors?
The International Classification of Disease (ICD) is a standard diagnostic tool created by the World Health Organization (WHO), for monitoring the incidence and prevalence of diseases and related conditions.
The ICD has diverse clinical applications, and is used not just by doctors but also by paramedic staff, insurance companies, researchers and policy makers. ICD is used to classify diseases and store diagnostic information for clinical, quality and epidemiological purposes and also for reimbursement of insurance claims.
What is ICD-10
The ICD tenth revision (ICD-10) is a code system that contains codes for diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, circumstances and external causes of diseases or injury.
The need for ICD-10
Created in 1992, ICD-10 code system is the successor of the previous version (ICD-9) and addresses several concerns. ICD-10 codes are updated on a yearly basis, allowing addition, deletion and modification of existing codes. Annual revision of codes and code systems is primarily driven by research, prevalence of new diseases, and insurance reimbursement needs. ICD-9 codes were not reimbursement-centric – a requirement that sprouted later in the course of implementation which paved way for a rational systematic foundation. In short, the ICD-10 code system has been introduced to match the pace of advanced healthcare and information technology industry.
How ICD-10 helps
ICD-10 contains more than 14,000 codes that can be sub-classified into 16,000 codes, catering to many new diagnoses. However, there are two main classifications used worldwide:
ICD-10-CM (Clinical Modification) – Diagnostic codes
ICD-10-PCS (Procedure Coding System) – Procedure Codes (for inpatients)
ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS accommodate new procedures as well as new technology. Not only do these codes cater to a number of diagnoses, they also have the potential to provide better and updated data for improving overall patient and health care. The data obtained from the codes provides better understanding of complex disease conditions and allows designing of clinical algorithms to track patient care outcomes.
What an ICD-10 code looks like
ICD-10-CM Diagnoses Codes are 3-7 character codes. Character 1 is alphabetic, character 2 is numeric and characters 3–7 are alphabetic or numeric, with a decimal after 3rd digit.
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