What is your ICD 10 Code: selfie obsession, extreme eye rolling or sucked into jet engine?

Today’s post, which is also my 1000th post (a grand thank you to you all), is a bit inside baseball. I work in the non-profit healthcare field. Which is a bit of an oxymoron as everything in the healthcare field is about billing and revenue generation. Sure, there is “care” but if you don’t bill for your 15 minutes at the highest billing code possible you are losing money. I hear this every few hours. My eyes have rolled as far back as they can. I will get back to that in a few seconds.

Now this past week something happened that will impact the next healthcare visit you attend. You may not notice. As a matter of fact you should not. Nonetheless, it will impact the visit. Here is where the inside baseball talk comes. But I promise you, there is a universal relatable point here. Stick with me.

When you go see a medical provider someone has to pay for that visit. Regardless of who pays, be it private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or charity, the visit needs to be billed. There are these things called billing codes.These are shorthand codes that describe why you were there seeing the provider. It can be an annual wellness visit. It can be due to asthma flare up. It can be a rickety popping knee. Whatever you are there for, it gets coded. Until October 1st, everything was billed under ICD-9 (international classification of diseases). It had 13,000 codes. On October 1st, it became ICD-10 and with it the codes grew to over 68,000. This is where you will get a laugh and see where psychologistmimi had to weigh in.

Ask me what are some of these new codes? One of my new favorite codes is “W2202XA”. This code gets marked by the service provider when you come in after having walked into a lamp-post. So many people nowadays, as a result of presumably looking at their phones, are walking into items on the sidewalk. Cell phone obsession is leading to very particular accidents and ailments. I am going to admit I actually had to call the advice line after a bump got bigger on my forehead. See I walked straight into a lamp-post and fell back onto my butt.  I was a “W2202XA”.  The doctor determined I did not have a concussion since I still knew my name, but he did so after the nurse had a great chuckle at my “ailment”. Is there a code for “I should have known better”?

Speaking of knowing better. There are also codes for getting kicked by a cow and bitten by a cow. That’s not even the funny part for me. What is even funnier is that there is a code for an “other” situation with a cow. Holy cow, Batman! I’m not touching that code any further.  By the way, it is “W55.29XA”.  I do want to ask, what part of the country does this code appear more often? No, no, I promised I wasn’t going to think of this any further.

Reflecting the fact that perhaps there ate too many Mission Impossible movies out there (I actually like them and thus do not agree with my own declaration), there is the code “V97.33XD”  that is for getting sucked into a jet engine. I jest not. Besides Tom Cruise and Daniel Craig, who else is getting sucked into a jet engine? I mean, there was in 2014 a 16-year-old boy who hid in the plane wheel from California to Hawaii.   However, I really haven’t seen a mass rush to replicate that feat.

Now, after numerous silly meetings and ridiculous emails regarding workplace complaints, is there an ICD 10 code for constant workplace eye rolling?  I have yet to find it, but please do let me know if you come across that code.  In that vein, I will leave you with one last funny one.  Do you have problems with your in-laws? There is a code for that!  You are normal and it is billable. Hurrah.

Who knew that such a mundane topic as ICD codes could provide so much insight into our times? Go ahead and find the one that speaks to you.