What is the Medical Billing Code for “It was caused by a toilet seat?”
on November 12th, 2008Medical care is going to get more complicated. A new medical coding system is soon going to be released. Consisting of over 155,000 codes, ICD-10 will be used to define various ailments and treatments provided by doctors, labs and hospitals. The new system will have, for example, 45 different ways to describe a sprained ankle.
Insurance companies love complexity because every little coding error gives them a reason to deny or delay paying medical claims. Initial estimates predict coding errors will rise by as much as 25%.
Why Do We Need 1,170 Codes for Angioplasty? (The Wall Street Journal Online)
Injured By a Spacecraft? There’s a Diagnostic Code for That. (The Wall Street Journal Health Blog)
A woman went to a plastic surgeon and asked him to make her like Bo Derek.
He gave her a labotomy.
Quotation from Joan Rivers
She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but
her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
Quotation from Actual Medical Records (Medi-Smart.com)
Ha Ha Ha. I like it. We need the codes for the laughs it will give us after reading them.
Beam me up Scottie …
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I don’t know why they need more codes, the insurance companies barely pay for anything as-is.
PS I like my new polka dots too! =)
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more codes, more confusion, more small print, more reasons not to pay. Ai.
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And that is the real problem with health care… Forget universal coverage right now. First the insurance companies need to be held accountable for their piracy.
It sounds so burocratic!
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A culture uses many words for things it values. For example, didn’t I read that there were 1,170 codes for snow in the eskimo language? Or was it less than that?
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you are the best!
a kiss my friend!
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Nowadays, you apparently have to be a brain surgeon to understand the medical codes… phew. I’m pretty sure there is a code for “it was caused by a toilet seat”. Maybe ASS?
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Hehe the first in many changes that will hit the medical system in time. I can’t WAIT to see what kind of medical system the government comes up with. Ya lets be just like England or Canada where you get to wait in line for surgeries such as heart bypass. Just had a heart attack and need a bypass? No problem just sign up and we may get back to you on that in a few years. Good luck to you. Ya sign me up for that. Socialized medicine, can’t wait.
That being said the new coding system is quite amusing. I wonder how many codes they have for being injured by a meteorite? hehe. Hope someone puts out the full code system online. Would make for some interesting reading.
Love the medi-smart one. Found humor is the best.
You can find the ICD9 codes on line with a quick search. What you can’t find are the CPT codes the doctors use for their billing and if you think the first is a long list you should see the latter which is owned by the AMA. Every year medical practices across the country are forced to buy a new CPT code book. Insurance companies compare ICD9′s with planned CPT codes in order to determine whether they’ll pay for procedures. I’m planning on getting out of the business of surgical authorizations before the next iteration – the ICD-10.
We’d be much better off with single payer health coverage. We’re the only modern western economy without it and it’s shameful how uninformed some people are.
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love the medical quote on the end
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LOL this is hilarious!!!
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A while back we had this thing called Skylab fall out of the sky into the WA desert. If it’d fallen into, say, Adelaide or Melbourne, we’d've needed a shitload of codes for “injured by spacecraft”.
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Susan said: “…We’d be much better off with single payer health coverage. We’re the only modern western economy without it and it’s shameful how uninformed some people are.”
Well, she is right on the money!
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you are a genius!! heheh
a kiss!!!
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You are fantastic! How do you do it?!
Another great one!
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