Welcome to ICD-10

Today is October 1, 2015, and the day set for the long-awaited change in the system used to code medical and surgical diagnoses.  Say good-bye to the 17,000 ways that the International Classification of Diseases 9 let you be sick or injured, and now we have 70,000 new ways for all those events.

In psychiatry, it shouldn't be too bad, and I'm planning to spend my day in the office updating my computer.  The psychiatry blogger PsychPractice was kind enough to make a cross-over chart, and I'm hoping that will be helpful.  If it might be helpful to you, here is the link:

http://psychpracticemd.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html


For others, it may not be such an easy day.  If you're having angioplasty today, yesterday your doctor had a choice of one code.  Today, she has 845 options, so do be patient with her, it's a big menu to choose from.  

There were jokes on Twitter about codes that would differentiate between being bitten by a duck in a thong or being bitten by a duck while wearing a thong.  Here at Shrink Rap, where the duck has been our long-time mascot, we don't think that's at all funny.

If you'd like a sample of some of the new codes, however, there is something for everyone.

For the creative types:
Y93.D1 Activity, knitting and crocheting

For the more active souls:

V91.07XA Burn due to water-skis on fire, initial encounter

 For those who can be a bit klutzy:

T71.231D Asphyxiation due to being trapped in a discarded refrigerator, accidental.  I couldn't find the code if someone was trapped in a refrigerator that hadn't been discarded.

And for those who are just really unlucky:

V9542XA Spacecraft crash injuring occupant – 

The codes can be very specific:

S30.867A Insect bite (nonvenomous) of anus, initial encounter

And we don't want ClinkShrink to feel left out, so there is

Y92.146 Swimming pool of prison as the place of injury

(And I imagine ClinkShrink will certainly be spending her day checking on the safety features of all those swimming pools in the correctional system here in Maryland)

Finally, there really are duck-related injury codes and they are kind enough to differentiate whether the patient is struck by a duck W6162XA or bitten by a duck W6161XA.  I suggest that you not do anything to provoke the duck.