And if you needed any more reasons to be concerned with the future of health care as it pertains to insurance billing, look no further. We’ve compiled some of our favorite ICD-10 billing gaffs.
Here are some straight-up laugh-worthy ICD-10 codes:
R46.1, “bizarre personal appearance”
R46.0, “very low level of personal hygiene”
W22.02XA, “walked into lamppost, initial encounter”
W22.02XD, “walked into lamppost, subsequent encounter”
V91.07XA, “burn due to water-skis on fire”
You do understand that in just this five alone, we have insanely improbable events here. The level of specificity is confounding. Water ski burns on the bottoms of feet? Are we in the water circus? The lamppost code is dangerous, too. God forbid you walk yourself repeatedly into a pole. Now if I fill out the form for an initial encounter, the insurance agent could claim, no, actually the second encounter was the cause of the trauma. And the claim gets denied. As for bizarre personal appearance, we have to ask who the judge of this is? And in what context do I use this? Mental health? This begs the question of whether we’re in the business of helping people, or shaming them for being unique.
Here are some broad looks at ICD-10 codes that are equally ridiculous:
– Injuries received while sewing, ironing, playing a brass instrument, crocheting, doing handcrafts, or knitting—but not while shopping
– 72 codes about injuries tied to birds including a duck, macaw, parrot, goose, turkey or chicken
– Codes for being “bitten by turtle” versus “struck by turtle”
– 312 animal codes in all, compared to nine in the international version
– Suturing an artery will become 195 codes, designating every single artery, among other variables
After reading about the position statements from proponents we’re still in awe. One argument we found had to do with the dream of being able to more clearly communicate to a physician in Italy, how a person sustained an injury in Kentucky. We’re going to go out on a limb here and ask, HOW MANY PEOPLE FROM KENTUCKY ACTUALLY TRAVEL TO ITALY REGULARLY AND NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR THERE?
While we’re not worried about getting pecked by a white swan while waterskiing on a gasoline lake. We do worry about getting snapped at by a turtle. We might have to call in an English professor to distinguish the difference between being bitten or struck.
We’ll be revisiting this blog post as more hilarity ensues. Feel free to share any intriguing codes you’ve come across lately.
More ICD-10 Stories
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