ICD-10 is part of the ACA and will be delayed again

Slipping past with all the other hoopla about ACA, the president has moved another date, originally planned for June of this year, to well beyond the elections of 2014. "On April 1, 2014, President Obama signed into law legislation that states that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot adopt the ICD-10 code set as the standard until at least Oct. 1, 2015. This is the second consecutive one-year delay for the ICD-10 implementation and is expected to be the last such delay."

Notice the "at least."  It could be later and it's already been delayed once. How's that for planning?

Luckily, there are now codes for injuries that occur while skiing on waterskis that are on fire as well as codes for orca bites. As you may imagine, these codes will certainly streamline my ability to treat my patients with these very common ailments.

So why is it that our government and its agencies think that there administrators are well qualified to develop codes for medical diagnoses? How is it that bizarre codes for humorous and extremely unlikely scenarios are being included and programmed into the system?

If you ask CMS administrators, they will tell you that these new codes were adopted by the US government after careful consultation with coding experts, CMS administrators and physician advisers. However, I am not exactly sure which physicians were involved in signing off on codes for “balloon accidents,” “spacecraft crash injuries,” and “injuries associated with a prolonged stay in a weightless environment.” http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/01/heels-obamacare-rollout-icd10.html

Medical slang and acronyms

Some of these are really awful, or disrespectful, or unbelievably gross. Link. A selection:

AALFD - Another A**hole Looking For Drugs

ALS - Absolute Loss of Sanity (nutcase)

BFH - Brat From Hell (usually accompanied by PFH - Parent(s) from Hell)

Blamestorming - apportioning of blame for mistakes, usually to any locum or lowliest medic in sight

Brothelizer test - microbiology test (on swab or sample) requested by the Genito-Urinary Clinic or STD clinic to check for sexually transmitted diseases. A positive test result means the patient has "failed the brothelizer test".

Coffee and a Newspaper - Patient is Constipated (i.e. long time sitting on toilet with drink and reading matter)

COSMONAUT - Cat Owner, Smells, Made Of Nuts And Used Tampons ("mad cat lady" with poor hygiene and body odour)

D&D - Divorced and Desperate (middle aged female who visits doctor weekly just for male attention) Also Death and Donuts--the night shift

Doc In A Box - a small clinic/health centre, with ever-changing staff.

Donorcycle - motorbike: the biggest cause of donated organs! (hence reckless motorcyclists are known as Organ Donors and rainy days are Donation Days)

Dunlap Syndrome - belly done lapped over the waistband; obese (spare tyre, Dunlop being a brand of tire)

FORD - Found On Road Dead

GOLP - Generalised Old Lady Pains

GPH - Goddamns Per Hour

Improving His Claim - Victim of minor accident, needs no treatment but wants something to support his insurance/legal claim.

Janitor's fracture - a fracture so obvious that a janitor (cleaner) could diagnose it

LFTWM - Looking for 3 Wise Men (applied to young pregnant females who deny having had intercourse)

Lipstick Sign - if a female patient is well enough to put on, she is well enough to be discharged

MGM syndrome - Faker putting on a real good show

OFIGATOOS - One Foot In the Grave And The Other One Slipping

Please Optimize Medical Treatment - don't call us until you've done your job first

Pumpkin Positive - a penlight shone into the patient's mouth/ear would encounter a brain so small that the whole head would light up

Qwertyitis - what a doctor suffers from when he spends more time on a computer than with actual patients

Scumdex - 1 pt for every tattoo, extra piercing, IVDU scar, etc. The higher the scumdex, the greater the likelihood of survival.