The conversion from ICD9 coding to the much more descriptive ICD10 that is required by October 2013 has significant implications for care delivery and reimbursement. The change greatly complicates how healthcare applications capture data and how historical information can be interpreted. Traditional approaches to terminology management cannot support the scale of a change of this magnitude, but Clinical Architecture solutions can.
The Conversion to ICD10
Converting from ICD9 to ICD10 roughly triples the number of available codes. This expansion makes it difficult to efficiently migrate to the new system. For example, a current medical record may list an ICD9 code representing the “toxic effect of venom” and any additional details if available will be described in free-text documentation entries. Well, there is no corresponding single code in ICD10 for “toxic effect of venom”. Instead, there are dozens of codes, each indicating the specific sources of the poison.
So going forward additional information will be required to select the appropriate ICD10 code and healthcare application must assist providers in knowing when and what additional information is needed. Looking at historical data also becomes problematic unless you can identify and capture the needed information from unstructured information stored in the system. SYMEDICAL Server helps on both fronts.
Because of the way SYMEDICAL Server processes terminologies, it has the ability to match word fragments to sections of code descriptions. So, when a provider begins to enter a phrase, it returns a limited set of possible matches and informs the user of additional information needed to arrive at a fully specified code. And since SYMEDICAL Server focuses on term descriptions it has the ability to convert free-text to discretely coded data, making it easier to interpret historically stored unstructured information.