There Are Now Officially 70,000 Ways to Get Sick or Die

There Are Now Officially 70,000 Ways to Get Sick or Die - Bloomberg Business
There are 70,000 ways to get sick, hurt or mortally injured, and the U.S. is making them official.
On Thursday, U.S. hospitals, doctors and other care providers have to start using internationally developed standards called ICD-10 codes to bill government programs and private insurers in the nation’s $2.9 trillion-a-year health-care system.
The codes cover everything from parrot bites to getting sucked into a jet engine.
Doctors have already begun mocking the diagnostic list, picking out the most absurd and arcane, such as Z63.1, “Problems in relationship with in-laws,” or V91.07XA, “Burn due to water skis on fire.” 
Yet for health-care providers who have payments at stake, the complex change is no joke.
Health insurers and government programs stopped accepting the old set of codes, called ICD-9, in the early morning hours Thursday, completing the switch.
In a study released last month, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said “little is known” about how much it will cost the health-care system to make the transition.
...Rothenhaus said that the biggest concern for his clients is local insurers, such as state Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans that make up a large proportion of some providers’ bills.
If these plans fail to implement the new codes properly, it could hurt individual doctors, he said.
...And if, even after all the efforts to get the transition right, doctors and hospitals are still dealing with problems, there’s an ICD-10 code for that -- F43.22: “Adjustment disorder with anxiety.”