Imagine an oversized book with lots of numbers, cross references, and rules. This is the IDC-10 book. If you peruse through the book for casual reading, there are codes listed that simply shock you. Why did they put those codes in? We do not want to make light of these scenarios, as they obviously happened to someone and probably in the emergency room, on Halloween. One wonders how many more odd things doctors have seen on Halloween. Here is a list of seven codes that topped the list of unusual.
X99.2 Assault by sword or dagger
R44.1 Visual Hallucinations
W22.02 Walked into lamp post
R46.1 Bizarre personal appearance
Y92.86 Slaughter house place of occurrence
F22 Delusional disorder
A28.1 Cat-scratch disease
****Living in today’s world we find ourselves in an ever-changing healthcare system. Not wanting to mention COVID 19, since it’s plastered everywhere, however, it is a good example of new diseases evolving or mutating. Not to get nerdy with how medical practitioners diagnose, classify, and track conditions as a part of the international classification of diseases (ICD). The United States migrated from an archaic system we called ICD-9 to ICD-10 in October 2014. This genre of codes made it capable to adapt more efficiently to add new codes as we identified them. The background is crucial to understand once a doctor determines a diagnosis. It is written in your medical records and here to stay. This has lasting effects, so all codes are valuable and paints a story determining why you went to visit your medical practitioner. Stay safe this Halloween.
-Jimmy Burnett, CPC