ICD-10: 1170 Codes for Angioplasty??

Jane Zhang reports in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on the coming revision of Current Procedural Terminology (“CPT”) codes by which healthcare providers bill payors for healthcare services. Instituted in order to describe medical services accurately primarily for third party payors (Medicare, Medicaid, and private health plans), the CPT coding sytem is said to have become too constricted.

While the revision will radically expand the number of codes (yes, there really will be 1170 codes to diffentiate angioplasties), this is a “fix” that may be worse than the problem. Providers, in general, already devote inordinate resources to coding, which can require billing personnel that serve no other patient care purpose. Is more detail really going to help? The risk of more errors is already anticipated, which can only mean more opportunism from Medicare and other payors in seeking to withhold or recoup payment. This appears to be yet one more reform that threatens to shift a bigger slice of the healthcare dollar away from providers and towards administration.