As you may know, billing codes are used by doctors and insurance companies when processing medical claims. The codes allow a common “language” across all sectors of the health care industry, and are perhaps even more useful in an era of digitized patient records. The current system known as ICD-9 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems version 9) contains some 17,000 descriptive codes, whereas the proposed successor (ICD-10) has more than 150,000 codes – so a major change, as you can imagine.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has requested a 2 year delay, from 2013 to 2015, to allow their member to come up to speed. The deadline had already been pushed back from 2011 to 2013. If the change is done well then it should aid in cost savings, and better tracking of diseases.
