ICD Codes

According to a recent study in the The British Medical Journal, medical mistakes are the third leading cause of deaths in the United States, but that it is not listed as such because of the way cause of death is coded and reported (Makary, et. al, 2016). A classification of codes called the International Classification of Disease (ICD) is used to identify known diagnosis, diseases, disorders, injuries and cause of death attributed to human beings. Due to the limitation of ICD codes, many deaths due to medical errors are not listed. In this paper, we will look into the importance of these codes, the problems associated with them, as well as how to solve them, before finally moving onto what improvements can be done in the future for this medical

These classifications are the International standard reports of diseases and health conditions. ICD codes are used by physicians, nurses, health managers, coders and other healthcare providers. These codes are important in medical practice because they are used to classify and code diseases recorded on many types of health and vital records, including health records and death certificates. The ICD codes are constantly being changed due to the medical errors, the need of greater accuracy and better data for quality measurement, and the addition of diagnosis codes details. The United States hospital is currently using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) to classify and code diagnosis and procedures. The U.S is one of the last countries in the world that adapts to ICD-10. ICD-10 is the new and updated version of ICD-9. The reason ICD-9 is replaced because it has been used by healthcare providers for over 40 years and it has become insufficiently solid to serve the current and the future health care needs. The ICD-10 has 2 systems, including ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS. ICD-10-CM is the clinical modification code used by all healthcare providers in diagnosis coding. Examples of ICD-10-CM codes are: E11 - Type 2 diabetes mellitus, E11.0 - Type 2 diabetes mellitus with hyperosmolarity,

The medical errors in this case is reported to be the misuse of several specific ICD-9-CM codes. The errors included ICD-9-CM codes 996– 999 (complications of surgical and medical care) and code 995.2 (unspecified adverse effect of drug medicinal and biological substance) (Groner, et, al. 2014). All 24 secondary diagnosis codes was initially searched before discharging each patient. A discharge with a hospital-reported medical error was defined as any discharge that had at least one of the ICD-9-CM codes mentioned previously. Among the patients, medical errors were identified as the misuse the Clinical Modification diagnosis codes (ICD- 9-CM) of the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision. Since the ICD codes have many close decimals, it is likely to make mistake in categorizing the health conditions when the coders have inadequate skills in coding. Moreover, there is a substantial amount of diagnosis codes to search through when determining the chronic condition. It may has led to the medical errors in distinguishing between pediatric trauma patients with and without chronic conditions in this case. The incorrectly discharged patients with chronic conditions and the incorrectly hospitalized patients without chronic conditions are tremendous consequences causing from coding errors. This coding error brings