Here is a sneak peek into our whitepaper, "The Perfect 10: Planning an ICD-10 Conversion for Maximum Productivity and Profits." Find out how your practice can maximize your investment with a well planned out ICD-10 Conversion.
The Need for ICD-10
Why is a new ICD code version essential at this point in time? The short answer is that ICD-9 has literally run out of numbers. With rapidly expanding medical research and scientific discoveries, all the current combinations in three, four and five digit ICD-9 codes have already been assigned. Additionally, the number of code sub-categories in ICD-9 is limited, making it difficult to drill down to the same level of precision that is built into the new ICD-10 code.
Important to note is that unlike ICD-9 codes which rarely contain letters, all ICD-10 codes are alphanumeric, beginning with a letter and containing a combination of letters and numbers thereafter. ICD-10 codes contain up to seven characters and support approximately 14,400 different codes with optional sub-classifications that bring the total to more than 16,000 codes. The US ICD-10 CMs (Clinical Modifications) have also been expanded to include some 68,000 codes, while ICD-9-CM supported only 13,000 codes. Therefore, the system as a whole conveys far more information with an expansion of high level codes and an enhanced hierarchal structure to communicate diagnoses in far greater detail.
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