Avoid ICD-10! Yes you can!

Lots of news/talk about ICD-10 these days.  Most organizations are spending time and money training care providers on it.  Software developers are busy implementing it – often by changing diagnosis selection search menus from ICD-9 to ICD-10. They're missing a fantastic opportunity. ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM are administrative coding systems.  They're used to code diagnoses. Clinicians have (unfortunately) been forced to learn many ICD-9 codes and are being told that we need to shift to ICD-10.  Some of our colleagues are hoping that they can just use ICD-9 and "someone else" will convert ICD-9 to ICD-10 but of course this can't happen.  ICD-10 is much more granular, and often requires additional information.  It's like the vet requiring one to specify your animal's breed:  ICD-9 allowed for "dog, cat, aardvark."  ICD-10 requires:  "Golden Retriever, Persian, O. a. lademanni ."  Nobody can translate to the more precise term if you hadn't recorded sufficient information in the first place. "But how can we avoid ICD-10?  That's the title of your blog post!"  You say.  "How?  Why?"  ICD-10 (and ICD-9) are administrative coding systems, weren't designed by or for clinicians.  We don't think that way.  There are (much) better alternatives.  When ONC made SNOMED-CT required fo...
Source: Docnotes - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs