Individual Variations in the Code of the International Classification of Disease for Similar Outpatient Conditions among General Practitioners

동일 질환에 대한 상병분류기호의 의료기관별 변이에 관한 연구

The code of the International Classification of Disease(ICD) is seriously questioned on its effectiveness in identifing an independent disease entity from similar conditions at general practitioner's offices. This study has attempted to show individual coding variations in ICD for similar ambulatory care conditions. It has been assumed that a following outpatient visit is regarded as the sane kind of visit owing to the same disease if a visit to the different source of care would be mad within an interval of less than two days. The 'D' health insurance association was selected for this analysis. The 'D' association had 153,298 members and made claims of 642,605 outpatient care in 1990. Out of the total outpatient claims, 8.6%(55,102 claims) were counted as the same disease which could meet the above assumption. Percent of conditions classified as the 10 leading causes of frequent visits which were matched accurately to the subsequent ICD diagnostic code found to be 15.8% on the average. The URI was noted for the highest concurrence rate of 20.4%. This proportion was even decreased to 11.6% on the case of chronic disease. Despite the fact that the assumption underlying the definition of the above same disease is rather rough and inappropriate, this study reveals that the code of ICD currently in use has weaknesses in seperating a certain independent disease from similar conditions at the outpatient setting. Thus, efforts need to be elaborated to meet the need of a new system of classification for conditions and diseases encountering at ambulatory care.