Funny Codes Exist in ICD-9 Too…And It Hasn’t Been An Issue

I was recently thinking about ICD-10 and how in many ways it’s been a punchline of jokes since there are some pretty crazy ICD-10 codes. I’ve enjoyed the crazy and funny ICD-10 codes as much as the next person (we all need a good laugh on occasion), but I think it’s generally been bad for the move of ICD-10. Now that I think ICD-10 will not be delayed again, ICD-10 is no joke.

With that in mind, I wanted to put the funny ICD-10 code discussion to rest. So, I asked on Twitter if there were any “funny” ICD-9 codes (of course if you have any of these things, it wouldn’t be too funny). In response to my tweet, Jennifer Della’Zanna created this great post that puts the “funny” ICD-10 codes in perspective. She also provided me this list of ICD-9 codes that could possibly be considered funny codes as well:

E928.4 External constriction caused by hair
E918 Caught accidentally in or between objects
E005.1 Injury from activities involving yoga
E913.3 Accidental mechanical suffocation by falling earth or other substance
E018.2 Injury from activities involving string instrument playing
E827.4 Animal drawn vehicle accident injuring occupant of streetcar
E845.0 Accident involving spacecraft injuring occupant of spacecraft
E905.4 Centipede and venomous millipede (tropical) bite causing poisoning and toxic reactions
E917.7 Striking against or struck by furniture with subsequent fall
E927.1 Overexertion from prolonged static position
E927.2 Excessive physical exertion
E928.0 Prolonged stay in weightless environment

You could see a nice sticker with a picture for E905.4 as a centipede bite, that’s funnier than the full description. That’s what’s happened with many of the ICD-10 codes that are made into jokes. However, that misses my point. My point is that we’ve had some funny ICD-9 codes for a long time and it’s never been an issue. The ICD-10 codes that have been made into jokes won’t be an issue either. It’s time to move on to the ICD-10 codes that do matter and make sure we’re ready for ICD-10 come October 1st.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

3 Comments

  • So what’s the reason we should move on. How about a list of ten diseases that ICD 10 coding will change outcomes for by virtue of the coding.

    Whats funny is that the list of ICD 10 codes that would replace your list will be longer than the number of characters in your post. I believe you mistake funny for the word absurd that is implied in characterizations of ICD 10 as funny.

  • Kerry,
    I’ve dug for reasons why the ICD-10 codes will change outcomes. Sadly, I haven’t found very satisfactory answers. However, you should move on since ICD-10 is unlikely to get a delay and if you want to get paid you’ll need to use ICD-10.

    There are certainly absurd ICD-10 codes, but just like the absurd ICD-9 codes didn’t cause any issues with your medical coding, I don’t think they’ll cause issues in ICD-10 coding either.

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