Question

What would a coder know about the number of possible characters for an I-10 code? What does the X in a code do? What does it mean when the last number in an ICD-10 code is a 9? What does it mean when the last digit in an ICD-10 code is the letter A? What do you think of this numbering system?

Answer 1

Possible character for 1-10 codes in ICD-10:
The 1st character will be alpha except 'U'
2nd - 7th character -alpha or numeric
The 7th character uses in only obstetrics, musculoskeletal, injuries and other external cause of injury.
codes can be up to 7 character length
Example: 125.110, E11.311, M1A.0111(A- initial encounter -7th character can be A,B,D,,g,K,P,S
'X' code indicates placeholder for future expansion. when the placeholder applies it will be a valid code when the code contains less than 6 characters. when reporting ICD 10 cm codes we must add a placeholder to make valid for the seventh character.
ICD -9 codes are a 3-5 character in length
ICD - 9 codes will not different the site whether it is left or right, it does not support combination codes. ICD 9 code has only 13,000 codes. it will not be updated modern day equipment.
Letter 'A' indicates an initial encounter
example: S52.521A. 'A' is the seventh character as an extension. It will be assigned for one claim, it represents when the patient receiving active treatment when they admit for poisoning, injury or other reason as an external cause.
This numbering system help health care organization, professionals, coders, IT professionals, insurance, and government for proper disease identification on patient health record, to view epidemiological trends which help medical reimbursement decisions. This detailed information improves quality, safety, efficacy and outcome measures.