Home Forums Discussions Problems Working with ICD-9 Codes

As we all know the "official" diagnostic language used in ICD9 codes is not the language that we might use as individual physicians and therefore finding the correct diagnostic ICD9 code can sometimes be challenging. My general question here is how are people working with ICD9 codes in Amazing Charts? I see that there is a checkbox in the ICD9 code editing window labelled "common", but I don't see how to access those codes that have been checked as "common" anywhere in the program. Also editing ICD9 codes by putting an * before those used most frequently seems to be one way to locate these codes quickly, but not very sophisticated. Please let me know what has worked for you!

I've taken to editing text associated with my common ICD codes, which makes it easier and more intuitive for me to find. For instance, "Osteoarthrosis Localized Primary Involving Pelvic Region Or Thigh" has become "Osteoarthritis Hip" in my ICD database. When you go to the ICD9 search engine, there's an option to edit the ICD code. Just type in whatever you wish the numerical code to "say" and it's changed into language you like.

Has anyone found a way to worked directly with the Access Database. I would sure like to get rid not ICD codes that I cannot bill. I would also like to edit out the (UNSP, UNSPEC, UNS, NOS, etc) as they do not add any value to my notes (they actually make the notes more cumbersome and goofy).
The other problem I have encountered with making changes on the database "a la carte" is that when new ICD updates occur, all the changes are added onto the changes that has been already made. In other words, I now have several entries for commonly used diagnosis code without a way to actually delete the now duplicated codes.
Would appreciate if anyone has a solution for cleaning up the ICD-9 database.

We have started to edit some of the most frequently used codes so that we can perform a search. This allows us to recognise a particular code from many similar ones. For instance, we dont see children, so we need to easily recognise the codes for adult immunizations from those for children (which we dont use). ALL CAPS is the method we are using.

Add a word that you actually use when describing the condition instead of how the code books state it. Later, you would perform a search on that word.

CPT codes should be editable. They are not at this time, so that text could be edited so that future search is easy.
there should be a way to to save commonly used codes but we dont have that. thats a handicap of the software

We use Encoder Pro which has a very intuitive search engine and will look for medical synonyms for various diagnosis. I wish AC was just as intuitive, however I did not think about editing the actual codes in AC and will try this in the future.