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Close Encounters of the Third Kind!
Most of us remember the 1997 Steven Spielberg movie! Richard Dreyfus plays Roy Neary who chases his vision of a spacecraft into a remote area where he and others experience a "close encounter of the third kind" - contact with ET! Well, if this happens to you, you can now rest assured that the Federal regulations will have a code for it in their new release of the ICD-10 medical diagnosis codes.
A new federal law is about to expand the number of medical-insurance codes dramatically. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Codes are the classification codes used by hospitals and doctors to diagnose and describe a patient's illness and injuries. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires these codes be used by health plans, health care providers and related services when electronically submitting claims and such. This does of course affect Medicare and Medicade patients and some non-government services. But, it will also undoubtedly affect every one of us and our providers due to the new health care act passed last year.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ICD-10 Website, the old codes ICD-9 are outdated. The 18,000+ codes don't allow them to be specific enough. They are about to be replaced with a new ICD-10 code. The new law will result in about 140,000 codes. This is expect to be the most complex, expansive and expensive code change in history. Industry analysts expect it to exceed Y2K with respect to cost and impact. The governments' own site states, "Every standard has been updated, from claims to eligibility to referral authorizations." www.cms.gov
So, OK where were we? One web company is advertizing that its ICD-10 training can be fun! So how much fun can we have with this one! Think about this:
If you step on a turtle - which causes you to walk (please walk, don't run, don't think they have a code for running) into a lamp post - at the pool behind your neighbors mobile home - while you are distracted by the crash of a spacecraft, which injures the occupant, there are codes for that!
W5922XA - Struck by a Turtle, initial encounter
W2202XA - Walked into lamppost, initial encounter
Y92026 - Swimming-pool of mobile home as the place of occurrence of the external cause
V9541XA - Spacecraft crash injuring occupant, initial encounter
Oh wait, wrong code! we weren't struck by the turtle, we tripped over him/her/it!
W5929XA - Other contact with turtle, initial encounter
So, where does the "Third Kind" come into play? How about these codes?
1.) V9541XA - Spacecraft crash injuring occupant, initial encounter
2.) V9541XD - Spacecraft crash injuring occupant, subsequent encounter
3.) V9541XS - Spacecraft crash injuring occupant, sequela
And heaven forbid you are a "sequela" which a dictionary defines as "A pathological condition resulting from a disease." Yea, second definition defines it as "A secondary consequence or result", but they have a code for "subsequent encounter". Maybe the "Third Kind" can be used for an alien abduction!
Are you ready for new HIPAA X12 5010 & ICD-10 standards? Version 5010 (which is a whole 'nuther update) standards for electronic health transactions start on January 1, 2012. ICD-10 for medical diagnosis and inpatient procedure coding on October 1, 2013. Don't you just love it?