Medical Coding, INTRODUCTION
What is Medical coding?
Definition: Medical coding is the transformation of healthcare diagnosis, procedures, medical services and equipment into universal medical alphanumeric or numeric codes.
Now let’s see what actually a medical coder’s job is…….
Take the diagnosis or prescription for medication =====> Translate it as accurately as possible into alphanumeric or numeric codes
Example:
Parkinson’s disease – G20
For every injury, disease & medical procedure there is a particular corresponding code.
Examples:
Injury: humerus fracture
Disease:HIV
Medical procedure:x-ray of chest
There are thousand & thousands of codes for the medical procedures, outpatient procedures & diagnosis.
Let’s understand this with an example……….
A person walks into a doctor’s office with complaints of abdominal pain in right lower quadrant, fever, nausea with vomiting.
A nurse asks the patient the symptoms & performs the initial tests required.
Then comes the doctor who examines the patient and diagnoses him with appendicitis. The doctor gives the required treatment.
Every part of the visit is recorded by the doctor or someone in the healthcare provider’s office.
Now medical coder translates every bit of relevant information about the visit into alphanumeric codes, which can be used in billing process.
There are number of sets of codes which a medical coder must know.
Here we will discuss on
ICD-10-CM,
CPT &
HCPCS.
These codes act as “Universal Language” between doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, insurance clearing houses, government agencies etc.
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