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player ready...Hospitals, doctor’s offices, clinics and nursing homes are bracing for a tsunami of new medical codes.
Starting Thursday, the U.S. health-care system is switching to a massive new set of codes to describe injuries and illnesses. The current diagnostic system has about 14,000 codes. The new ICD-10 system has about 68,000. If things go according to the long-delayed plan, patients shouldn’t notice. But doctors, health-care providers, and just about everybody in the health system will. We noticed some pretty bizarre injury scenarios:
Bitten by squirrel: W53.21XA
Injury due to other contact with shark: W56.49
Walked into lamppost, initial encounter: W22.02XA
Person getting on or off pedal cycle injured in collision with pedestrian or animal: V10.3XXA
Bizarre personal appearance: R46.1
Assault by other hot objects, sequela: X98.8XXS
Activity, knitting and crocheting: Y93.D1
Bitten by a cow: W55.21
Fall from or off toilet with subsequent striking against object, sequela: W18.12XS
And you can combine them. If you were struck by a golf ball in an opera house, that would be: W21.04 (struck by golf ball) with Y92.253 to designate location (in an opera house).