Why are there significantly more ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes than ICD-9-CM diagnosis and procedure codes?
The increase in the number of codes allows greater detail and flexibility. Both ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS have an improved structure, capacity, and flexibility for capturing advances in technology and medical knowledge. They incorporate greater clinical detail and level of specificity to provide better data for the many purposes for which coded data are used now and are anticipated to be used in the future. The inability of the structure of the ICD-9-CM diagnosis and procedure code sets to support desired expansion in level of detail is a major reason why ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS are being adopted as replacements. Just as an increase in the number of words in a dictionary doesn’t make it more difficult to use, the greater number of codes in ICD-10-CM/PCS doesn’t necessarily make it more complex to use. In fact, the greater number of codes in ICD-10-CM/PCS make it easier to find the right code. In addition, just as it isn’t necessary to search the entire list of ICD-9-CM codes for the pr
