AHRQ, Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, Opiods / 24.10.2017
Trends in Opioid-Related Inpatient Stays Shifted After Switch to ICD-10 Coding
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_37708" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Elixhauser[/caption]
Anne Elixhauser, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Rockville MD 20857
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Hospital inpatient data began using ICD-10-CM (I-10) codes on October 1, 2015. We have been doing analysis using the new codeset to determine to what extent we can follow trends crossing the ICD transition—do the trends look consistent when we switch from I-9 to I-10? Tracking the opioid epidemic is a high priority so we made this one of our first detailed analyses. We were surprised to find that hospital stays jumped 14% across the transition, compared to a 5% quarterly increase before the transition (under I-9) and a 3.5% quarterly increase after the transition (under I-10). The largest increase (63.2%) was for adverse effects in therapeutic use (side effects of legal drugs), whereas stays involving opioid abuse decreased 21% and opioid poisoning (overdose) decreased 12.4%.
Dr. Elixhauser[/caption]
Anne Elixhauser, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Rockville MD 20857
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Hospital inpatient data began using ICD-10-CM (I-10) codes on October 1, 2015. We have been doing analysis using the new codeset to determine to what extent we can follow trends crossing the ICD transition—do the trends look consistent when we switch from I-9 to I-10? Tracking the opioid epidemic is a high priority so we made this one of our first detailed analyses. We were surprised to find that hospital stays jumped 14% across the transition, compared to a 5% quarterly increase before the transition (under I-9) and a 3.5% quarterly increase after the transition (under I-10). The largest increase (63.2%) was for adverse effects in therapeutic use (side effects of legal drugs), whereas stays involving opioid abuse decreased 21% and opioid poisoning (overdose) decreased 12.4%.
