When squirrels attack! There’s a medical code for that.
By Sarah Kliff
February 14 at 10:56 am


SAN FRANCISCO -- In 1855, European statisticians gathered in the stately chambers of France’s Corps Législatif. There on the banks of the Champs-Elysées, they made the world’s first formal attempt to list every single way a person could die.

More than 150 years later, in a beige and windowless hotel ballroom thousands of miles away, hundreds of American medical coders are diligently chipping away at the exact same task. They’ve set out to master the nuances of the sprawling ICD-10, formally known as the Tenth Edition of the International Classification of Diseases.

“It gives me a heart attack just thinking about it,” Louisa Reolubin said with a sigh. The grandmother, at a three-day training for medical billers, uses green and pink highlighters to mark important new instructions on how to use the code set
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There are different numbers for getting struck or bitten by a turkey (W61.42 or W61.43). There are codes for injuries caused by squirrels (W53.21) and getting hit by a motor vehicle while riding an animal (V80.919), spending too much time in a deep-freeze refrigerator (W93.2) and a large toe that has gone unexpectedly missing (Z89.419).
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Lots more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...-code-for-that/

Quote: PzLdr wrote in post #2

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There's a medical code for Nancy Pelosi?

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