Medical coding is like translation. The people behind the medical coding take medical reports and convert them into a set of codes. In a medical claim, these codes play an important role. In this article, we will look at the medical coding and relevant statistics. Read on to learn more.
The reason for coding medical reports
You may be wondering why we need to encode medical reports. Isn’t it enough to just describe the diagnoses, symptoms, and procedures? After all, these reports can be sent to an insurance company.
According to reports published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), during the last 12 months, there were more than 1.4 billion patients who visited hospitals. This includes patients visiting emergency rooms, outpatient facilities, and doctor’s offices.
Suppose there are only 5 pieces of information encoded in each visit. It 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 encryption helps to facilitate the transfer of a large amount of data.
Apart from this, encryption helps you to distribute the same documents between different medical facilities. For example, the code for strep throat is the same whether it is in Hawaii or Arkansas. With the help of consistent data, you can efficiently conduct research and analysis. Health and government agencies use the information to keep track 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 know if a treatment is effective. In fact, this is much more important for large facilities, such as hospitals.
Now, we should go ahead and find out more about 3 types of code. If you are a medical coder, this information will be very helpful.
Three types of code
ICD
ICD is short for 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 diagnosis and the patient’s condition. When it comes to the billing process, these codes help professionals determine the need for medical treatment.
CPT
CPT is short 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 refers to the Common Health Care Procedures Coding System. Also known as “hick picks”. Primarily, the HCPCS codes correspond to equipment, procedures, and services that the CPT codes do not cover, including medications, ambulance transportation, prosthetics, and medical equipment.
So this was an introduction to medical coding. I hope you find this guide useful.