ICD9CM Billing, A Better Understanding

By John Miller


In medicine, you cannot just directly indicate anything without using the specifics. ICD9CM billing is a medical code which are associated with the patients diagnosis to know his or her condition. Medical coders are those people who use this, and they are truly skilled in assigning the medical codes as well as training.

In medical offices, it is their way of keeping track of medical history records. This includes the date and time of a visit from patient and the reason behind the visit. All of this are used for their insurance. They need to do this accurately for the quality to remain the same, doctors will not be charge with medical malpractices, and reimbursement from insurances is met.

The initials ICD9 stands for International Classification of Disease, ninth revision and are being referred as the diagnosis codes. Coding is considered as universal and standard for the system. The purpose is to be able to identify different kinds of diseases. Know that it has three up to five digits only.

For the codes, it only should reach up to five digits. This tells why the patient decided to pay a visit, what were the doctors findings, and lastly what was the action made such as the supplements advise to intake. When coded, it can only be either numeric and alphanumeric and must reach to its highest point of specification while listing it on the billing claims form.

Medical billers and coders need to have a solid foundation of understanding about the ICD9Cm. Know that this has been divided into three volumes. One and two composes diagnosis codes, while the third contains list of procedure codes that are available. Coders and billers assigned to inpatient are using the third volume as with this they can describe necessary services needed.

The volume 3 on the other hand which was just released not long ago contains all the procedural information for the process of hospital billing, which can be seen in a separate manual. You cannot understand all this if you will not read the first two volumes first. So, start there before proceeding to this part.

Diagnostic needs to be accurate for proper reimbursement. When you will not be able to perform it correctly, the payment that could have been given to you will be denied with a reason of not medically necessary. So, carefully do the process to avoid errors and corrections which cause greatly.

Now there are abbreviations that you will be encountering all the time, NEC and NOS. NEC means not elsewhere classifiable. NOS means not otherwise specified. For color codes, blue means you cannot use it as a primary diagnosis, best describe as a condition which is caused by another condition. Yellow for not enough information and gray for other codes.

Lets proceed to formatting. Main terms must be written in bold letters. If there are any alternative words or synonym present, you need to put a bracket. Sub terms must be indented so you may easily identify it. For supplemental it has to be italic. Add a bullet when a new code is added.




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