We're planning a number of changes to the ICD9Data.com website. The changes are currently in the development stage and will be ready sometime in the fall. I wanted to dedicate a blog post to outline some of these changes; as always please contact me at
max.clarkson@icd9data.com with any comments or suggestions about the planned changes or the site in general. Your comments help us to shape the future of the site, so keep them coming!
Despite some changes planned (all of which I hope you think are positive!), the goal of ICD9Data.com remains to keep medical coding data easily accessible and to give you as much free medical coding data that is legally allowed.
A New Search EngineICD9Data.com currently uses a Google-search for search engine functionality. While you can't get more reliable than Google, it is missing some things that would make medical coding searches better. For example, we want to make it easier to search particular code subsets, i.e. the 2007 ICD-9-CM Volume 2 index. It's not that easy with the Google-search unless you type in some not so user friendly text.
We've been experimenting with a new search engine. I'm not going to go into the technical details; I can tell you though that the new search engine will have all of the functionality of the Google-search (ie boolean queries) and it will allow you to search certain code sets (ICD-9-CM Volumes 1, 2 and 3, HCPCS etc) or all code sets. The new search engine will also be available on every page, and will allow for nesting of specific and non-specific ICD-9-CM codes. A big improvement!
Saved ListsThe new web site will allow you to group a set of codes into lists. Think of a list as you would your browser favorites. It lets you access a frequently used set of codes. In order to use this feature, we're going to have to introduce logins to that a user can be associated with a list. Of course, the site can be used without logging in; you just won't be able to access your lists.
CPT CodesWe're in the process of adding the CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) code set to the site. This is the defacto standard for procedure coding - the codes are published by the American Medical Association. As you may or may not know, CPT codes are copyrighted by the AMA, hence we have some legal commitments to adhere to.
We can't show the CPT codes for free - we'd be issued a cease and desist order rather quickly from the AMA if we did. The plan is to offer a super-low-cost subscription for users to access the CPT data. Don't worry, the rest of the site will remain 100% free. But for those people that need to access CPT codes, you will be able to at the lowest price in the medical coding world. We have to do this, because the CPT codes are copyrighted and not free for us to publish.
There will also be a free trial period where you can use the full site, with CPT data. This will let users get a taste of what super-low-cost subscription service will be like. We still working on how long the free trial period will be; I'll have details in a future post.
A website user asked me what does super-low-cost mean? Let's say that it will be less expensive than buying a medical coding textbook and a fraction of the price of some of the medical coding software out there. For those of you used to paying hundreds of dollars for medical coding software, you will be pleasantly surprised by how low this service will be priced. Besides in the days of belt-tightening and budget cutbacks, who wants to overspend? I'll have more details in a future post.
What do our users think? What features are important for your daily CPT coding tasks? Please email me at
max.clarkson@icd9data.com with your comments and I will relay on to our software development team.
Physician Fee ScheduleBy adding the CPT code set to the website, we can offer some additional value-added services. One of which is the Medicare physician fee schedule. We're attempting to show fees for not just the current year, but historically as well (with the pressure on Medicare fees these days, I think you can guess what the graph would look like). We're also experimenting with adding custom adjustments so you can tweak fees based on your own criteria. Because this service uses CPT codes, it will be only available to users on the free trial or subscribing users.
National Correct Coding EditsWe're also adding the NCCI edits to the website. This data will allow users to determine what CPT codes can and cannot be bundled together. Because this service uses CPT codes, it will be only available to users on the free trial or subscribing users.
A New Domain Name - www.????.comAs you can see, we're moving away from having only ICD-9-CM codes on the site. Hence we're planning on creating a new domain name to accurately reflect the purpose of the site. We plan for all of the links on Google to ICD9Data.com to resolve to the new domain and for it to be completely transparent to web users. I think the new domain name will be much easier to remember too. A future post will announce what the domain is - if I pointed you to it now, it would be rather bare.
That's an overview of what we have planned. In the next couple of weeks I plan to add some screen shots as the improved user interface begins to evolve. Send me feedback with your thoughts or comments at
max.clarkson@icd9data.com, and thank you for using ICD9Data.com.
Labels: The Future of ICD9Data.com
