ICD (International Classification of Diseases) and Coding
What is ICD? It is the shorter version of abbreviation for The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. It provides codes to classify diseases and a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances and external causes of injury or disease. Thus whatever the type of health condition, it is put into a specific category that has other similar diseases and a code is assigned to it.
The origins of ICD can be said to have its origins from the 1850s when the first edition was known by the name of “International List of Causes of Death”. Who publishes ICD and what is the use of ICD today? Well, ICD is published by the WHO (World Health Organization) and is used world-wide for the following purposes. ICD is todays international standard for all health related and management purposes.
- Morbidity and mortality statistics,
- Reimbursement systems and
- Automated decision support in medicine.
- Epidemiology
- Population health analysis
- Monitoring diseases
- Storage of information
It was in May 1990 that ICD-10 was endorsed and only four years later in 1994 did it come into use in WHO member States. It is available in the six official languages of WHO (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) besides also in 36 other languages. The ICD 10 is the 2007 version is the latest and has the following 22 chapters.
- Certain infectious and parasitic diseases
- Neoplasm
- Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanism
- Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases
- Mental and behavioral disorders
- Diseases of the nervous system
- Diseases of the eye and adnexa
- Diseases of the ear and mastoid process
- Diseases of the circulatory system
- Diseases of the respiratory system
- Diseases of the digestive system
- Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue
- Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue
- Diseases of the genitourinary system
- Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium
- Certain conditions originating in the prenatal period
- Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities
- Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified
- Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes
- External causes of morbidity and mortality
- Factors influencing health status and contact with health services
- Codes for special purposes
The author of this article is Ricci Mathew of OSI (Outsource Strategies International ), a US based company that offers services in Medical Coding, Medical Billing and Medical Transcription for clients across the US.