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Sep
30

ICD-10 codes you could not make up

Courtesy of good friend and esteemed colleague Alex Swedlow of CWCI, I give you the new diagnoses you do not want to appear on your medical chart.

(For a serious review of ICD-10 and workers comp, click here for CWCI’s analysis)

First up, the tragic Y93.D1: Accident While Knitting or Crocheting. Note, needlepoint and lace-making are separate and, well, distinct.  One wonders what kind of injury…burnt lip from ingesting overly hot Earl Gray?  

Known colloquially as the “Lincoln Diagnosis”, I give you Y92.253: Hurt at the Opera.  I know, technically not an opera, but hey, close enough!

Here’s one that doesn’t sound so fun – V97.33: Sucked into Jet Engine.  I think I saw something like that in an Indiana Jones movie…but it may have been a propeller, so…never mind! 

Among the candidates for most unlikely code ever to appear outside of a blog, I present V91.07:  Burn Due to Waterskis on Fire.

From Adam Fein, a candidate for the coveted “developed after coders read The Martian” award – V95.44 (“Spacecraft accident injuring occupant”)

Then there’s this, which makes one wonder if even the ICD-10 coding geniuses thought there could be a sequel – W56.22: Struck by Orca, Initial Encounter. 

From there to something that we kinda sorta always knew in the back of our heads was definitely a medical problem, but now we KNOW it ’cause there’s an actual code! Z63.1: Problems in Relationship with In-Laws.  

Our oldest daughter is getting married next summer…I’m hoping this isn’t prescience…


5 thoughts on “ICD-10 codes you could not make up”

  1. Joe, a man being sucked into a jet engine can viewed in the latest “Captain America” installment, The Winter Soldier. I assure you it didn’t look fun…Nor was it likely there would be much left of the person to diagnose.

    Thanks for sharing these new codes with us.

    1. Firefly got there first, but if specificity allows for one to be deliberate and the other an accident, they would be different codes. Both right engines, if I recall… ;)

  2. What ever happened to the old Adam 12 dispatcher catch-all: “See the man, unknown trouble.”

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Joe Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates

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