AUSTRALIAN CODING CLASSES IN COIMBATORE

 AUSTRALIAN CODING CLASSES IN COIMBATORE

Australian Coding we have to look at the massive amount of data that every patient visit entails. If you go into the doctor with a sore throat, and present the doctor with symptoms like a fever, sore throat, and enlarged lymph nodes, these will be recorded, along with the procedures the doctor performs and the medicine the doctor prescribes.

In a straightforward case like this, the doctor will only officially report his diagnosis, but that still means the portion of that report that will be coded contains a diagnosis, a procedure, and a prescription.

Take a step back, and this is suddenly a lot of very specific information. And that’s just for a relatively simple doctor’s visit. What happens when a patient comes into the doctor with a complicated injury or sickness, like an ocular impairment related to their Type-2 diabetes? As injuries, conditions, and illnesses get more complex, the amount of data that needs to be conveyed to insurance companies increases significantly.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were over 1.4 billion patient visits in the past year. That’s a stat that includes visits to physician offices, hospital outpatient facilities and emergency rooms. If there were just five pieces of coded information per visit, which is an almost unrealistically low estimate, that’d be 6 billion individual pieces of information that needs to be transferred every year. In a system loaded with data, medical coding allows for the efficient transfer of huge amounts of information.

Coding also allows for uniform documentation between medical facilities. The code for streptococcal sore throat is the same in Arkansas as it is in Hawaii. Having uniform data allows for efficient research and analysis, which government and health agencies use to track health trends much more efficiently. If the CDC, for example, wants to analyze the prevalence of viral pneumonia, they can search for the number of recent pneumonia diagnoses by looking for the ICD-10-CM code.

Finally, coding allows administrations to look at the prevalence and effectiveness of treatment in their facility. This is especially important to large medical facilities like hospitals. Like government agencies tracking, say, the incidence of a certain disease, medical facilities can track the efficiency of their practice by analyzing

Now that we understand the importance of this practice, let’s take a look at the three types of code that you’ll have to become familiar with as a Australian coder.

ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS classification system

The ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS classification system is used for classifying admitted patient care and comprises the following:

International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM) – used to classify diseases, injuries and related health problems

Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI) – used to classify surgeries, therapies and health interventions

Australian Coding Standards (ACS) – guidelines for nationally consistent application of ICD-10-AM and ACHI.

ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS is used in public and private hospitals in Australia to classify episodes of admitted patient care:

ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS Twelfth Edition is used for separations from 1 July 2022.

ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS Eleventh Edition is used for separations from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2022.

The ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS classification system is currently updated every three years along with the Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups (AR-DRG) classification to ensure they are fit for purpose and remain clinically current. 

ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS is used for all admitted episodes of care including acute, newborn, mental health, subacute and non-acute care.

ICD-10-AM is also used for:

emergency department care in the Emergency Department ICD-10-AM Principal Diagnosis Short List that is used in the Australian Emergency Care Classification

subacute episodes of care in the Frailty Related Index of Comorbidities that is used in the Australian National Subacute and Non-Acute Patient Classification. 

Classification of diseases 

Use of the classifications

Requests for content change

You can suggest changes to the AR-DRG and ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS classification systems via a public submissions process through the Australian Classification Exchange (ACE). 

We encourage you to learn more about the requirements and process before making a submission.