ICD-9 coding

I have always rebelled against ICD-9 codes. The terminology is archaic and often clinically irrelevant. As a physician I have more important things to keep track of. Nevertheless ICD-9 is part of the game I’m forced to play.

Fortunately, for those inevitable occasions when you have to sign off on medical equipment and the coder isn’t handy there’s help on line. Kevin once showed us how to Google for ICD-9 codes and pointed us to this resource. Wikipedia has this user friendly index and an overview of the International Classification of Disease. The classification system is horribly out of date. ICD-9, still in use, was published in 1977. ICD-10, conceived in 1983, completed in 1992 and probably already out of date, has not yet been implemented in the U.S.