Obamacare "suicide by jellyfish" - 155,000 new medical codes

Ever considered suicide by jellyfish?

Have you ended up in the hospital after being injured during the forced landing of your spacecraft? Or been hurt when you were sucked into the engine of an airplane or when your horse-drawn carriage collided with a trolley?

Chances are slim.

But should any of these unfortunate injuries befall you after October 1, 2014, your doctor, courtesy of the federal government, will have a code to record it. On that date, the United States is scheduled to implement a new system for recording injuries, medical diagnoses, and inpatient procedures called ICD-10?—?the 10th version of the International Classification of Diseases propagated by the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

So these exotic injuries, codeless for so many years, will henceforth be known, respectively, as T63622A (Toxic effect of contact with other jellyfish, intentional self-harm, initial encounter), V9542XA (Forced landing of spacecraft injuring occupant, initial encounter), V9733XA (Sucked into jet engine, initial encounter), and V80731A (Occupant of animal-drawn vehicle injured in collision with streetcar, initial encounter).

The coming changes are vast. The number of codes will explode?—?from 17,000 under the current system to 155,000 under the new one, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The transition to ICD-10 was planned long before Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. But Obama administration officials say it is a critical part of the coming reforms. “ICD-10 is the foundation for health care reform,” said Jeff Hinson, a CMS regional administrator, in a conference call about ICD-10 for providers in Colorado.

It will affect almost every part of the U.S. health care system?—?providers and payers, physicians and researchers, hospitals and clinics, the government and the private sector. That system?—?already stressed with doctor shortages, electronic medical records mandates, and the broader chaos of Obamacare?—?is nowhere near ready. And that has lots of people worried.

See more at The Weekly Standard.