The National Centre for Health Statistics is an organization the United States’ chief health statistics agency. The organization is one of the main agencies of the United States Federal Statistics System and is charged with the role of compiling statistical information that is used to guide policies and actions to improve the general health of all Americans. NCHS is under the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Seeing that it is primarily concerned with health statistics, NHCS has also been given the federal mandate to use the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.
The International Classification of Diseases is a standard diagnostic tool used for health management, epidemiology and for clinical purposes. NHCS has been at the centre of the development of the ICD codes that are used across a variety of circles within the American healthcare system. Most recently, the organization has developed a modified version of the codes for morbidity purposes. The new set of codes, ICD-10-CM is an improvement of the ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 and has been subjected to various tests to evaluate their viability. NCHS developed the ICD-10-CM after a thorough evaluation conducted by a Technical Advisory Panel. In addition, NHCS also consulted extensively with clinical coders, physician groups amongst other healthcare stakeholders to assure clinical utility and accuracy.
Many hospital billers and coders are of the opinion that the rationale behind diagnosis coding is only for billing, that is describing patient condition and getting paid. However, there are other aspects that utilize diagnosis coding and that affect us on an individual level. For instance, diagnostic codes are used by the government in tracking diseases. This is extremely helpful in the determination of mode of spread of diseases and their geographical patterns. In addition, health officials indicate diagnostic codes on death certificates for cause of death determination as well as for tracking purposes. The other major benefit of ICD coding is that it creates a standard for diagnosis recording of a patient. This assists other medical care providers to know what patients have been diagnosed with as well as their medical history when they visit other hospitals or other health professionals.
References
ICD - ICD-10-CM - International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification. (2014). Retrieved February 6, 2014,
