“Disease classification has existed since the 1890s when French physicians recognized the need to be able to track disease outbreak, progression, and mortality. In the past 110 years, there have been new diseases, discoveries, and advances in treatments, yet little has changed in the way that disease classification is employed. We still rely on disease classification for reporting things such as disease monitoring, outbreak, progression, morbidity and mortality statistics, and more recently, for reimbursement.
In the late 1970s, the United States began using ICD-9 for disease classification. Almost immediately after its implementation, work began on a successor: ICD-10. The ICD-10 code set is officially known as the International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision with Clinical Modification. The code set is developed and maintained primarily by the World Health Organization, and its current ICD-10 system has a level of logic never before seen in the coding industry.”
Article
Angela Boynton, Cataract Outsourcing, 3 September 2009
