ICD-9 Billing Codes Moving to ICD-10 Format On October 1...2013

Friday, August 14, 2009
Posted in: AcuBase and Trigram Stuff, Practice Management

We occasionally get questions (or comments) from AcuBase Pro users who tell us about upcoming regulatory issues as they relate to medical practices and billing.  One such call came to remind us that codes for diagnosis were changing from our current ICD-9 format to ICD-10 as of October 1.  Of course, the called was unaware that those code sets will not change until October 1 of 2013.  (A news release from the US Dept of Health and Human Services says it would take effect on Oct. 1, 2011, but we’ve been assured that it’s now 2013.) Nevertheless, if you plan to be in practice for a few more years, it is good to know that, in four years, diagnostic coding for medical billing will change to a new format, the ICD-10. 

The current ICD-9 code set contains approximately 17,000 diagnostic entries to choose from.  The ICD-10 codes go into much greater detail, a coding of diseases and signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances and external causes of injury or diseases, as classified by the World Health Organization (WHO). The code set allows more than 155,000 different codes and permits tracking of many new diagnoses and procedures, a significant expansion on the 17,000 codes available in ICD-9. Work on ICD-10 began in 1983 and was completed in 1992.  While this is a significant change, Trigram Software plans to be ready for it, and we’ll get you the information you need as we get it.  In the mean time, if you know of any related information (and can provide your source!), let us know in an email to us at , or comment below. 

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