“Diagnosis Coding” is a known method for reporting why a particular medical service is required for a particular patient. It is a type of specific language. Accurate diagnosis coding report is very important for payers as it explains the reasons for providing particular service to the patient.

In order to promote the international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of mortality statistics specific “International Classification of Diseases(ICD)” have been designed and published by the “World Health Organization(WHO)”.ICD provides specific format for reporting causes of death on the certificate of death. Medical conditions reported in the death certificate subsequently transformed in to medical codes with the help of classification structure of ICD along with the selection and modification rules included in the respective applicable revision of ICD.

ICD helps in selecting a single reason for death. This can be done with the help of reported sequence of conditions.ICD coding rules also help in improving the usefulness of mortality statistics. It is mainly because of a preference given to specific categories. This single identified cause of death is termed as the ‘underlying cause of death’. All other reasons reported constitute the ‘non-underlying causes of death’. Combined together they are known as ‘multiple causes of death’.

continue reading ICD-10-M, the New International Classification of Diseases