Is there a computer in the house?
Published 12:01 am Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Soon, if the worship of all things technological gives you a raging headache, your doctor will have a medical code to designate that very problem in the bill sent to your insurance company.
The system used by doctors to describe medical services has about 18,000 codes, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. A new, federally mandated American version of the International Classification of Diseases will balloon the choices to around 140,000.
The system, to debut in 2013, includes codes describing specifically what bone was broken, or which artery is receiving a stent, the WSJ reported. It has codes for injuries occurring in chicken coops, opera houses, art galleries, squash courts and nine locations in and around mobile homes. It includes codes for walking into lampposts, a trendy malady easily traced to mobile phones.
(Apparently having a code for “other” and detailing the particulars would be more cumbersome than attempting to have a code for every freak accident that has ever happened to an insured American.)
The agencies behind the new codes say they provide more specific and up-to-date accounting of diagnoses and hospital inpatient procedures, which could improve payment strategies and care guidelines, the paper reported. “It’s for accuracy of data and quality of care,” said Pat Brooks, senior technical adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
What’s the code for cynicism-related injuries? While some codes may aid doctors and patients, it seems it will mostly help insurance companies in their never-ending effort to find another party who might be made responsible for your medical bills.
Meanwhile, it was reported Tuesday that an insurance company is hiring IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, of “Jeopardy!” fame. WellPoint Inc., will combine data from patient records, the insurance company’s history of medicines and treatments, and Watson’s library of textbooks and medical journals, the Associated Press reported.
IBM says Watson can then answer a question in moments, providing several possible diagnoses or treatments, ranked in order of the computer’s confidence, along with the basis for its answer.
That’s exactly what we ask our doctors to do, not insurance companies.
WellPoint says patients need not worry that Watson would be used to deny benefits. If a doctor veers from Watson’s diagnosis, the insurer would have a clinician review the case like it currently does, AP reported.
It sounds like Watson would be much more helpful to doctors and patients on the front lines in hospitals, than to insurance companies reviewing doctors’ decisions. But likely only an insurance company could afford to hire Watson, which WellPoint is doing for an undisclosed amount.
