Medical coding is like translation. The people behind medical coding take medical reports and turn them into a set of codes. In a medical claim, these codes play a big role. In this article, we’re going to take a look at medical coding and the relevant statistics. Keep reading to know more.
The reason for coding medical reports
You may be wondering why we need to code medical records. Isn’t it enough to simply describe the diagnoses, symptoms, and procedures? After all, these reports can be sent to an insurance company.
According to reports released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the past 12 months there were more than 1.4 billion patients visiting hospitals. This includes patients visiting emergency rooms, outpatient centers, and doctor’s offices.
Suppose there are only 5 pieces of information coded at each visit. That would be a whopping 6 billion pieces of information that the professional would need to transfer each year. However, this estimate is unrealistically low. Therefore, medical coding helps make it easier to transfer a large amount of data.
Apart from this, encryption helps you to distribute the same documents among different medical facilities. For example, the code for strep throat is the same whether you are in Hawaii or Arkansas. With the help of consistent data, you can perform research and analysis efficiently. Health and government agencies make use of the information to keep abreast of health trends. For example, if the CDC needs to analyze the spread of viral pneumonia, the ICD-10-CM code can help them.
Finally, coding helps you find out if a treatment is effective. In fact, this is much more important for large facilities, such as hospitals.
Now, we need to go ahead and learn more about 3 types of code. If you are a medical coder, you will find this information very useful.
three types of code
ICD
ICD is the abbreviation for the International Classification of Diseases. These diagnostic codes provide a uniform vocabulary to describe possible causes of death, illness, or injury. In the 1940s, the World Health Organization (WHO) established this code. Over the past 60 years, it has been revised many times.
These codes help represent the patient’s diagnosis and condition. When it comes to the billing process, these codes help practitioners determine the need for medical treatment.
CPT
CPT is the abbreviation for Current Procedural Terminology. These codes are used to document most medical procedures in a doctor’s office. The American Medical Association (AMA) published and maintained this code. Therefore, AMA reserves the copyright and updates the codes annually.
HCPCS
HCPCS stands for the Health Care Common Procedures Coding System. It is also known as “pueblerinas selections”. Primarily, HCPCS codes pertain to equipment, procedures, and services not covered by CPT codes, including medicines, medications, ambulance rides, prosthetics, and medical equipment.
So this was an introduction to medical coding. I hope you find this guide useful.
