ICD-10 Follies: There’s a Code For That???
SOURCE: MedPage Today ~ Feb 19, 2014
By David Pittman, Washington Correspondent,
MedPage Today
It is 224 days before the move to ICD-10 becomes a must-do. Lest the deadline slip your mind, MedPage Today is spotlighting some of those thousands of new codes that might just be getting a bit too granular.
Today’s code:
W61.92: Struck by other birds (There are already separate diagnostic codes for being struck by parrots, macaws, psittacines, chickens, geese, and ducks. W61.92 is for all other types of birds.)
Here is a re-enactment for your viewing pleasure.
nyck, nyck, nyck!
I do sometimes despair at the depth to which some of these codes go… Is it really that necessary to differentiate between a chicken or a macaw striking the patient? What are the implications of this in treatment? 😉
No difference in treatment, but in terms of capturing global statistics for how many people are injured by macaws vs chickens, there you have it. I don’t know if we were able to measure how many people, worldwide, were sucked into jet engines, prior to creating a code to track it.