ICD 10

What is ICD-10?
The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) is a coding of diseases and signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances and external causes of injury or diseases, as classified by the World Health Organization (WHO).

When a physician evaluates a patient, the physician collects subjective and objective data (the "history and physical") to diagnose the patient’s condition and develop a plan for treatment. The most widely used diagnostic taxonomy in health care is the World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD).

Work on ICD-10 began in 1983 and was completed in 1992.

As of 2007, the United States is the only country in the industrialized world still using older ICD-9 codes for administration and health care delivery. The ICD-9 system was developed in the 1970s and contained structure/space limitations that constrained its ability to accommodate advances in medical knowledge and technology. ICD-10 codes address these issues and also help in morbidity and mortality reporting. Because the United States continues to use version ICD-9, it has difficulty comparing its health service utilization to other countries. Also, ICD-9’s age makes its content no longer clinically accurate with current medical science and U.S. adopted national/state ICD-10 mortality data cannot be compared to ICD-9..
ICD-10 is divided into two parts. One is ICD-10-CM, which defines the code set used to report inpatient and outpatient diagnoses (ICD-9 Volume 1 and 2). And the second is ICD-10-PCS for Procedure Coding System that defines the code set used to report inpatient procedures (ICD-9 Volume 3).