Question

-What did you learn about Medical Coding and the Purpose of ICD-9-CM?

Answer 1

Medical coding is the transformation of healthcare diagnosis, procedures, medical services, and equipment into universal medical alphanumeric codes. The diagnoses and procedure codes are taken from medical record documentation, such as transcription of physician's notes, laboratory and radiologic results, etc. Medical coding professionals help ensure the codes are applied correctly during the medical billing process, which includes abstracting the information from documentation, assigning the appropriate codes, and creating a claim to be paid by insurance carriers.

Medical coding happens every time you see a healthcare provider. The healthcare provider reviews your complaint and medical history, makes an expert assessment of what’s wrong and how to treat you, and documents your visit. That documentation is not only the patient’s ongoing record, it’s how the healthcare provider gets paid.

The International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) is based on the World Health Organization’s Ninth Revision, International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9). ICD-9-CM is the official system of assigning codes to diagnoses and procedures associated with hospital utilization in the United States. The ICD-9 was used to code and classify mortality data from death certificates until 1999, when use of ICD-10 for mortality coding started.

The ICD-9-CM consists of:

• a tabular list containing a numerical list of the disease code numbers in tabular form;
• an alphabetical index to the disease entries; and
• a classification system for surgical, diagnostic, and therapeutic procedures (alphabetic index and tabular list).

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesExternal are the U.S. governmental agencies responsible for overseeing all changes and modifications to the ICD-9-CM.