Importance Of ICD Codes

ICD Codes, International Classification of Diseases codes are used to classify the diseases. This helps in recording keeping which is not only highly effective but also very authentic. It’s being maintained by USA Govt. and WHO.

These are found on patient paperwork, including hospital records, physician records, and death certificates. Commonly used in American and Europe healthcare facilities, Most of the Indian BPO who provides service to these clients uses these codes for all record keeping.

ICD code

• For Doctors’ reimbursements from Insurance company. All the practices done by Doctors for the patients are recorded in CPT codes (Current Procedural Terminology). Then the CPT needs to match with ICD for all payment to be reimbursed.

• A chronic disease patient, once an ICD code has been assigned, it may affect the treatment he or she receives. ICD standardizes the disease & any doctor can treat the follow up patients after feeding the ICD codes for the patients

• All clinical trials need ICD codes for the person who is getting admitted to the clinical research

• ICD codes are recorded in Death certificate for insurance payment.

• ICD-9 codes and ICD-10 codes actually look quite different from each other. ICD-9 codes, which one can find on current paperwork, are being phased out by 2014 - 15.

• Most ICD-9 codes are comprised of three characters to the left of a decimal point, and one or two digits to the right of the decimal point. Examples: 250.0 means diabetes with no complications, 530.81 means gastro reflux disease (GERD), 079.99 means a virus.

• Some ICD-9 codes have V or E in front of them. A V code designates a patient who is accessing the healthcare system for some reason that won't require a diagnosis, usually a preventive reason. Examples: V70.0, the code for a general health check-up, V58.66 specifies that a patient is a long term aspirin user, V76.12 is coded for a healthy person who gets a mammogram, and V04.81 is the most common code for a flu shot.

Medical Coding Course

• A02.0 indicates a salmonella infection

• I21.X refers to myocardial infarction

• M16.1 is used for arthritis in the hip

• Q codes represent genetic abnormalities, like Q35 for a baby born with a cleft palate

• U codes are for new problems that develop over time. Any of the antibiotic resistant "superbugs" that develop over time will fall into the U category.

An esteemed organisation like Apollo hospitals and Medvarsity offer Medical Online medical Coding Courses  for graduates with with certification and placement support.

ICD codes could be important to a patient for a variety of reasons:

What Does an ICD-9 Code Look Like?

What Does an ICD-10 Code Look Like?

Over the next few years, ICD-10 is the most robust and detailed classification of diseases. This will replace ICD-9 and will bring more standardization in the medical coding world. ICD-10 codes are approached differently and are quite different from their ICD-9 counterparts. These codes are broken down into chapters and sub chapters. They are comprised of a letter plus two digits to the left of the decimal point, then one digit to the right. The letters group diseases. All codes preceded by a C indicate a malignancy (cancer), codes preceded by a K indicate gastrointestinal problems, and so forth.

Examples are:

Can ICD learning will help in career prospects?

Most of the Medical Coding and ICDs requirement is in western world. In India, neither our doctors and hospitals or the insurance payers follow the same method for actual day to day payment. So one should learn ICD and Medical coding?