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Catch and release Undercurrents of healing By Charles Bransford, MD
Editor’s note: This essay was written for the Kelly Culhane Writing Prize on the topic, “How nature eased my pain and helped me heal.” The contest was sponsored by Savage Press, Inc., Superior, Wisc.
I
stand in the shallow water, comfortable in my trusty waders, fly rod in hand, looking patiently for clues. Rising haughtily out of the mist enshrouding the bulrushes to my left, a great blue heron flaps his antediluvian wings and disappears, but not before he tips his head, wink-like, towards the half-submerged tree near the water’s edge.
Ready or not … ICD-10 is coming By Katie Kerr, MA, RHIA, and Brooke Palkie, EdD, RHIA
T
here’s no turning back now: Big changes in medical diagnosis and inpatient procedure codes are coming for “HIPAA-covered entities”—and if you’re reading this publication, that almost certainly means you. Specifically, as of Oct. 1, 2014, ICD-9-CM (the U.S. version of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification), will be replaced by ICD-10-CM/PCS. In this tenth version of the ICD:
inpatient hospital and physician practices alike.
• ICD-10-PCS procedure codes will be used for inpatient hospital procedures only.
The transition is occurring because the ICD-9 codes provide limited data about patients’ medical conditions and hospital inpatient procedures. ICD-9-CM, which was developed more than 30 years ago, uses outdated and obsolete terms, and is inconsistent with current medical practice. According to CMS.gov (the website of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), ICD-10-CM/PCS is more robust and descriptive. In “one-to-many” matches, for example, one ICD-9 procedure code may translate to hundreds of anatomi-
• ICD-10-CM will be used by
Ready or not ... to page 10
Now I know she is really there—the magical fish I’ve been seeking all my life: the one all fishermen imagine every time they have a big fish on the line just before they can actually see it. The fins appear, then shadows of the towering giant, and finally the real thing. Today, the calls of red-winged blackbirds, blue jays, wrens, and chickadees blend with the soft hum of cicadas and crickets. Bullfrogs provide the percussion. However, it’s the silence between the sounds that calls to my soul and settles me into the Catch and release to page 12