07/18/2023

How Soon Will the United States Adopt ICD-11?

The World Health Organization (WHO) is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). As of January 1, 2022, ICD-11 or the 11th edition of ICD became effective worldwide, but as of yet has hardly been spoken about in the United states. 

The WHO published ICD-10 in 1992 and made it available to the world. Each country has the option to either adopt the code set as is or customize it to meet the individual needs of their country’s healthcare reporting system. ICD-10 codes are used across the globe for reporting mortality, morbidity and other conditions affecting an individual’s health; however, in the United States, it is customized through the process of clinical modifications (hence the CM in ICD-10-CM) to allow it to be tied to reimbursement. Uniquely enough, the United States is the only nation that actually ties healthcare service reimbursements to medical necessity by linking healthcare services to ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes.  For this reason, coupled with the complexities of our free economy and legislative process, it took the U.S. from 1992 - 2015 to complete the ICD-10 customization and finally implement ICD-10-CM. 

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