I.C.D.-9 slavery

[Guest guest]

The concept of an international system to codify medical diagnoses may

have some merit, but come on, give me a break. That money spent on

those silly code books is so insulting ... on a good day, I try to

remember laughing at Chico Marx, in A Day at the Races --- " getcher

code book ! ... " , then selling Groucho a second set of code books, to

de-cipher the first set ... I don't know if this is the worst

invention to ever get excreted into the practice of medicine, but it

is certainly an enormous burden. After about 10-15 minutes of fumbling

through my code books, and my on-line references, I am ready to just

give up, or settle on anything close. An example: Raynaud's

Phenomenon (much more common than Raynaud's Syndrome) has no code

number, that I can find ... so, either label the patient with

something much worse than she actually has, or back it off to

something vague and meaningless, like " pain in extremity " ... Has

anybody found an I.C.D.-9 code for isolated Raynaud's

Phenomenon ? ... If it is the insurance industry which wants every

bean counted, every variant of U.R.I. tallied, every polygonal peg

rounded-off and jammed-into one of these round holes, then why do we

have to do their work ? ... It drives me crazy. In 4 years of medical

school, and 3 years of residency, I learned enough diagnoses (and

treatments) to start practicing medicine (in 1980), but nobody told me

I might need to spend hours-upon-hours, in endless search for a code

number, to match every diagnosis ... Makes you wanta holler, the way

the do my mind. Rian Mintek, M.D. ... deconstructing, at the end of

a long day ...