Pneumonia Hospitalization Coding Changes Associated With Transition From the 9th to 10th Revision of International Classification of Diseases

To evaluate the impact of International Classification of Disease, 10th revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) implementation on pneumonia hospitalizations rates, which had declined following pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction for infants in 2000.

We randomly selected records from a single hospital 1 year before (n = 500) and after (n = 500) October 2015 implementation of ICD-10-CM coding. We used a validated ICD-9-CM algorithm and translation of that algorithm to ICD-10-CM to identify pneumonia hospitalizations pre- and post-implementation, respectively. We recoded ICD-10-CM records to ICD-9-CM and vice versa. We calculated sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) of the ICD-10-CM algorithm using ICD-9-CM coding as the reference. We used sensitivity and PPV values to calculate an adjustment factor to apply to ICD-10 era rates to enable comparison with ICD-9-CM rates. We reviewed primary diagnoses of charts not meeting the pneumonia definition when recoded.

Sensitivity and PPV of the ICD-10-CM algorithm were 94% and 92%, respectively, for young children and 74% and 79% for older adults. The estimated adjustment factor for ICD-10-CM period rates was −2.09% (95% credible region [CR], −7.71% to +3.0%) for children and +6.76% (95% CR, −3.06% to +16.7%) for older adults. We identified a change in coding adult charts that met the ICD-9-CM pneumonia definition that led to recoding in ICD-10-CM as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation.

The ICD-10-CM algorithm derived from a validated ICD-9-CM algorithm should not introduce substantial bias for evaluating pneumonia trends in children. However, changes in coding of pneumonia associated with COPD in adults warrant further study.