Medical Coding is the process of converting healthcare diagnoses, procedures, medical supplies/services, and equipment into alphanumeric codes. The diagnoses,procedures and services provided are abstracted from medical records that may either be paper or EHR (Electronic Health Record).
ICD (International Classification of Diseases) guidelines (set of rules to follow while assigning codes) are used to abstract the diagnoses from the medical records. These guidelines are developed by CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services and NCHS (National Center for Health Statistics, who are part of the U.S. Federal Government’s Department of Health and Human Services.
ICD guidelines have been approved by the four organizations that make up the Cooperating Parties: The American Hospital Association, American Health Information Management Association, CMS, and NCHS.
The ICD guideline are revised annually and the updated guidelines will be published and will become effective from 1st October of every year.
More than 100 countries are using ICD guidelines to process the medical codes. Few countries have modified the guidelines according to their local Healthcare System requirements. ICD 10-CM is used by The USA, Canada and few Middle East countries whereas ICD 10-AM is used in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait etc. UK has got their own modification of ICD guidelines.
