Doctors On Edge As Healthcare Gears Up For 70,000 Ways To Classify Ailments

[DamianTV]

http://science.slashdot.org/story/15...ssify-ailments

Melinda Beck reports in the WSJ that doctors, hospitals and insurers are bracing for possible disruptions on October 1 when the U.S. health-care system switches to ICD-10, a massive new set of codes for describing illnesses and injuries that expands the way ailments are described from 14,000 to 70,000. Hospitals and physician practices have spent billions of dollars on training programs, boot camps, apps, flashcards and practice drills to prepare for the conversion, which has been postponed three times since the original date in 2011. With the move to ICD-10, the one code for suturing an artery will become 195 codes, designating every single artery, among other variables, according to OptumInsight, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc. A single code for a badly healed fracture could now translate to 2,595 different codes, the firm calculates. Each signals information including what bone was broken, as well as which side of the body it was on.

Propoenents says ICD-10 will help researchers better identify public-health problems, manage diseases and evaluate outcomes, and over time, will create a much more detailed body of data about patients' health—conveying a wealth of information in a single seven-digit code—and pave the way for changes in reimbursement as the nation moves toward value-based payment plans. "A clinician whose practice is filled with diabetic patients with multiple complications ought to get paid more for keeping them healthy than a clinician treating mostly cheerleaders," says Dr. Rogers. "ICD-10 will give us the precision to do that." As the changeover deadline approaches some fear a replay of the Affordable Care Act rollout debacle in 2013 that choked computer networks, delaying bills and claims for several months. Others recollect the end-of-century anxiety of Y2K, the Year 2000 computer bug that failed to materialize. "We're all hoping for the best and expecting the worst," says Sharon Ahearn. "I have built up what I call my war chest. That's to make sure we have enough working capital to see us through six to eight weeks of slow claims."

Note: Embedded links not copied from source link.

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I predict a plethora of pills. Oh and Political because the results of overdiagnosing everyone for everything may very well put a strain on the medical system, but I guarantee that there is some political motivations behind this.

Q: Oh, woe is us, the broke ass medical system, how can we make more money?
A: Make more people sick! Invent new illnesses if you have to.

[dannno]

[presence]

a massive new set of codes for describing illnesses and injuries that expands the way ailments are described from 14,000 to 70,000.

must have consulted with the IRS

[CPUd]

In the long run, I think this will be a good thing for researchers, but right now this is hell for anyone who's been in the field 20+ years having to deal with the implementation.

[Intoxiklown]

My wife was talking about this a couple of weeks ago. She told me a few of the codes, one of which was a code for a patient who had been inured in a crash of the space shuttle. She told the nursing staff if such a patient was brought into the ER from the wreckage of a space shuttle crash, she was confident that no matter what language was used in the charts, there would be no mistake as to the reason they were in there.

[Lucille]

I heard complaints about them from an x-ray tech this morning. SMH I told her I think that all the regulations are just a way for the government to create more government jobs. All of the questions she asked me were already in my medical chart too. What a colossal waste of time. The amount of time and money (BIRM) that the bureaucracy sucks out of the private sector and our lives is nauseating.

The lighter side to those new ICD-10 medical codes.

The most absurd codes in the entire ICD-10 set, with a little advice from Healthcare Dive on how to handle these cases should they come into your ER:

16. V97.33XD: Sucked into jet engine, subsequent encounter.
Sucked into a jet engine, survived, then sucked in again? First of all, that really, really sucks. Second of all, this patient is obviously Wolverine, and should be detained for imaging and posterity.
(Technically, this means "subsequent encounter with a physician" not "subsequent encounter with a jet engine," but that's less dramatic.)...

13. Y93.D: Activities involved arts and handcrafts.
Camp is a dangerous thing. Hot glue guns and knitting needles definitely wouldn't be allowed on a plane, yet we habitually allow 7-year-olds to play with them. This is a public health crisis that needs to be addressed.

11. Y92.146: Swimming-pool of prison as the place of occurrence of the external cause.
There is also a code for "day spa of prison as the place of occurrence."

8. W61.62XD: Struck by duck, subsequent encounter.
Maladies that rhyme should be given immediately priority in the ER. Ducks, like most water fowl, are mean-spirited animals and this case should be treated with the utmost urgency as it is likely to be a serious injury.

7. Z63.1: Problems in relationship with in-laws.
Who doesn't?

6. W220.2XD: Walked into lamppost, subsequent encounter.
No. No. People. You only get to do this once. ONCE. If a patient is going around whacking into lampposts regularly, there is a deeper problem here, and he should be referred to psych immediately.

5. Y93.D: V91.07XD: Burn due to water-skis on fire, subsequent encounter​.
How does this happen? Are water skis even flammable?

4. W55.29XA: Other contact with cow, subsequent encounter.
"Other contact with cow." OTHER CONTACT WITH COW? There are codes for "bitten by cow" and "kicked by cow." What else is there?! What, precisely, is the contact with the cow that has necessitated a hospital visit?!

[Philhelm]

Oh $#@!! We've got a HQGF-246907 on our hands!

What's that?

A purple hamster being inserted into a transgendered man's rectum by a rabid baboon during a full moon.

I thought that was a HQGF-246908.

No, that's the one with the orange hamster.