The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released two videos to explain the transition to updated medical codes and ICD-10.
By Oct. 1, 2015, all organizations covered by HIPAA must be compliant with ICD-10 for diagnoses and inpatient procedures. The procedure codes for outpatient procedures and physician services will not change.
“Using ICD-10, doctors can capture much more information, meaning they can better understand important details about a patient’s health,” the narrator of the video said. “Also, the level of detail that is provided by ICD-10 means researchers and public health officials can better track diseases and health outcomes nationwide. With more specific codes, descriptions accurately reflect key aspects of the patient’s disease, condition or injury.”
For instance, the narrator said ICD-10 would include codes for whether a person broke his or her right or left arm, whereas ICD-9 could not determine which arm was broken. ICD-10 will also provide information on related medical conditions, the causes of medical conditions and the specific location on the body.
The second video details the change to ICD-10 using diabetes as an example. Whereas the codes under ICD-9 had three to five characters, the ICD-10 codes have up to seven characters. The first three characters are related to the disease or health condition, while the next three characters represent clinical details such as the cause of the disease, its severity and its anatomical location.
Under ICD-9, there are two diabetes codes, one for diabetes and the other for secondary diabetes. However, unlike ICD-9, ICD-10 separates type 1 diabetes from type 2 diabetes and eliminates the secondary diabetes classification. There are new codes for diabetes, including diabetes for an underlying condition, drug or chemical induced diabetes and other specified diabetes. Providers using ICD-10 can also enter whether a person is having complications from diabetes.
For instance, the video points out that diabetes sub-categories under ICD-10 include ketoacidosis, kidney complications, ophthalmic complications, neurological complications and circulatory complications.
Through ICD-10, doctors will have a better understanding of a patient’s medical history because the new system allows them to share a patient’s information and provides a more detailed and accurate picture, according to CMS.
The videos are part of the CMS eHealth initiative that is focused on standardizing electronic information and technology in order to reduce healthcare costs and provide higher quality care.
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.