The latest version of the health care system’s disease classification system (ICD-10) has gone live on October 1. Under the updated index, doctors can now classify ailments using an extensive list of more than 70,000 codes — up from 14,000 under ICD-9. Seems a bit excessive.
The rationale behind the exponential increase is that physicians and other medical providers can now submit more specific claims based on the severity of a diagnosis and be paid accordingly. For example, instead of adding a modifier as to which patient’s digit or appendage has suffered an injury, there are now specific codes that include laterality.
Insurance companies and NC Tracks (North Carolina’s Medicaid billing system) say that they are indeed prepared for the conversion, having processed plenty of dummy claims. Smaller practices, on the other hand, could very well experience a turbulent rollout. The Charlotte Observer reports that fewer patients are now being teated due to staff spending more time filing correct codes.
Now that there are over 70,000 disease classification codes along with thousands of more procedure codes, bets are that the health care system will initially experience adverse side effects that include coding mishaps and payment delays.
