9 Nisan, 5774
ICD-10 is the newest version of International Classification of Diseases designed by the World Health Organization. It enables medical researchers and medical professionals in industrialized nations to communicate in optimal fashion to protect global health.
It has received bad press for quite some time.
It is maligned for being more complicated than past ICD versions, and loaded with obscure meanings, improbable situations and other bothersome stuff.
What critics fail to realize is that ICD-10 aka I10, enables medical coders such as me to explain the nature of problems and treatments that have become part of life since the invention of the Internet:
- Extreme sports and attendant injuries are newish developments.
- So are problems which result from using digital devices, exposure to chemicals recently added to public life, increased medical awareness of disease processes plus their causes and cures.
- The skills for identifying child, spouse, employee and other abuses are better than they were in the past, too.
Those are only a tiny smidgen of issues that matter to the new ICD-10 version of medical coding and to your medical insurance reimbursements.
They also matter to the way public health care is improved.
New medicines, medical devices, medical strategies and medical insight invented after the creation of the Internet are being used today. The previous version of medical coding, ICD-9, can't possibly reflect that.
Without ICD-10 available as a communication tool in the wider medical care, medical coding, medical research and medical insurance worlds, there is simply no way to adequately, thoroughly inform many people who need to know of those realities.
When you read condemnations such as New Coding System to Add Costs, Burdens to Healthcare, you need to put things into perspective.
Anyone using a new tool needs to learn how to use it. That adds costs of money and time to the picture.
But the cost-effectiveness of inevitably better insurance reimbursements improves the overall situation.
So do cutting-edge medical reporting and research, used to protect your health.
What about doctors who feel burdened by the learning curve? I propose that they consider what it would be like to deliver medical care without knowing developing trends in public health and harm. Working without sufficient information can limit medical care. So can lower medical insurance reimbursements to their medical practices and facilities.
Look at Coder Coach's Newsflash for a brief overview of the situation.
Now consider this: When medical coders can better explain to your insurer about why you benefited from medical practices refined and more effective than what was available before 1979 (when the present form of medical coding went into effect) or invented after the invention of the Internet, you stand to receive BIGGER and more frequent medical insurance reimbursements for the medical care keeping you optimally healthy/alive.
You'd also be able to benefit from more accurate medical research statistics. They teach medical professionals about what's likely to harm or help you. Stuff all of you need to know.
Here's a peek at the evidence mounting about the effects of improved medical care.
The ICD-10 medical coding system enables important people to process that information for the betterment of public and financial health.
So, are you ready to benefit from the wealth of updated medical procedures and more?
Tell your senators, congressmen/women and president that you want ICD-10 medical coding in America, NOW.
Need to take action to nurture yourself through a medical or mental health setback in the meantime?
Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.
Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.
Fill your mind with facts, not rumors. That's good for your health.
