subject: Medical Billers- The Transition From Icd-9-cm To Icd-10-cm [print this page] The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is designed to establish international clarity and the ability to compare the collection, processing, classification and presentation of mortality statistics.
Currently the United State is the only industrialized nation using ICD-9-CM. Most of the rest of the world is using ICD-10-CM for morbidity reporting.
However, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicate the replacing of the 30 year old IDC-9-CM code set is October 1, 2013. That means the coding system needs to be updated within the next four years.
Specifically, ICD-9-CM:
- Lacks adequate detail
- Is rapidly running out of capacity
- Is obsolete. It does not reflect current knowledge of disease process
- Obstructs the ability to compare costs and outcomes of medical technologies
- Is no longer able to support current health information needs
Following are the twelve reasons to transition to ICD-10-CM:
- It contains more than 68,000 diagnostic codes compared to about 13,000 ICD-9-CM codes
- Medical claims cannot be paid fairly since the current classification system do not accurately reflect the most current technology and medical treatment
- Quality of care cannot be accurately measures using ICD-9-CM. When precise codes are unavailable, it's very difficult to evaluate the outcome of new procedures and track new health care conditions
- We have an obligation to measure health care services judiciously, improve clinical decision making, track public health issues, knowledgably conduct medical research and identify fraud and abuse
- It will help redesign our payment systems to appropriate classify and pay for health care services
- It will result in better coding accuracy
- Higher quality information for measuring U.S. health care
- Reduced coding errors
- Alignment of the U.S. with worldwide coding systems
Improve the ability to track and respond to international public health threats
- Improve the ability to meet HIPAA electronic code requirements
- The ability to accommodate future expansion
The plain fact is that ICD-9-CM simply no longer fits with the 21st century healthcare system. In fact, The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics identified the need to replace ICD-9-CM in 1993. The committee saw then that ICD-9-CM was rapidly becoming outdates.
As part of a global health care community, it's vital that the United States be able to track new health threats, disease outbreaks and results of new healthcare treatments. The rapid implementation and integration of the new ICD-10 into all of our billing systems will ensure that the United States will receive the most current and accurate medical coding possible.
