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As many as 165,000 diagnosis and inpatient procedure codes were included in America’s medical system. According to federal officials, it is biggest change witnessed in the US healthcare since the start of Medicare.

The change has been made from ICD-9 to ICD-10 with ICD meaning International Classification of Diseases. With the new diagnostic rules, things will become more elaborate and that may slow down things for a while.

Those who are in the favor of the codes said that the expansion in details is good for people as better data will be generated on injuries and diseases. The ICD-9 system was quite old, as it was in effect since 1979 in the US.

It was 17,000 codes that were replaced and added in the new ICD-10. Marjorie Sisson, the ICD-10 administrator for Banner University Medicine, said that the ICD-10 needs more specifications.

“Everything we do is documented — that is the patient record. The more meaningful the record, the better the care”, affirmed Sisson. There is a possibility that the additional details may reveal about trends of which people were unaware of earlier.

Maria Persons, director of revenue cycle and the ICD-10 project lead at Tucson Medical Center, thinks that the introduction of the ICD-10 is a great thing. With this, the nation will be able to shore information with the World Health Organization using the same nomenclature.

The changes will help providers provided better definition of patients’ clinical status and ability to treat complex medical conditions.

“If you go back to why we are doing this in the first place, which is to be on the same page in terms of disease management and infectious-disease tracking, then this really is a good thing.”
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