Two EHR Systems Show Variability in Coding for Uveitic Diseases

Two electronic health record (EHR) systems produced considerably different ICD-10 codes for specific uveitic diseases in a recent analysis.  

Investigators compared ICD-10 code descriptions with ICD-10 codes for 27 uveitic diseases produced by the Epic and MDIntelleSys EHRs, and noted the number of diseases where coding differed between the systems. Among the results: 

• 13 uveitic diseases were coded differently. 
• The Epic system returned 16 ICD-10 codes and the MDIntelleSys 12 ICD-10 codes to describe 13 diseases.
• 4 diseases had multiple codes returned, and 6 codes were used to describe more than 1 disease. 

The authors noted that the ICD-10 descriptions for certain codes lack specificity, which leads variable coder interpretation. 

Palestine A, Merrill P, Saleem S, Jabs D, Thorne J. Assessing the precision of ICD-10 codes for uveitis in 2 electronic health record systems. [Published online ahead of print July 26, 2018]. JAMA Ophthalmol. doi: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2018.3001.