CDC to Implement International Classification of Disease Codes for COVID Vaccine Status
01/27/23
International Classification of Disease codes are extensively used in medical records, medical insurance data and health research to classify precisely disease states as well as injuries from exogenous agents. Vaccination status is not a disease or an injury state, yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has rationalized creating codes for it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently codified International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes for COVID-19 vaccine status.
ICD codes are extensively used in medical records, medical insurance data and health research to classify precisely disease states as well as injuries from exogenous agents such as accidents, medication and medical device injuries, toxic chemicals, etc.
Vaccination status is not a disease or an injury state, yet CDC has rationalized creating ICD codes for it. The coding is set to become effective on April 1.
As described by Dr. Robert Malone, “The ICD classification system is run by the World Health Organization, not the U.S. government.”
The vaccine status ICD codes were developed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services some nine months ago, and CDC is implementing them.
The coding scheme, Z28.xxx, includes both vaccination status and possible reasons for the status. However, there does not appear to be a code for “fully vaccinated,” only for various states of “not fully vaccinated.”
The code Z28.0 means “immunization not carried out because of contraindication.” Z28.1 means “immunization not carried out because of patient decision for reasons of belief or group pressure.”
Z28.2 means “immunization not carried out because of patient decision for other and unspecified reason.”
Z28.8 means “immunization not carried out for other reason” which because of code Z28.2 must refer to reasons not attributable to patient decisions.
Finally, Z28.39 means “other underimmunization status,” including “Delinquent immunization status” and “Lapsed immunization schedule status.”
However, a potential contradiction arises because code Z28.310 means “unvaccinated for COVID-19.” In order to reconcile this, the Z28 codes in the previous paragraph must refer to vaccines other than for COVID-19.
The only other COVID-19 code is Z28.311 which means “partially vaccinated for COVID-19,” where “partial” refers to the CDC definition for “fully vaccinated” at the time when the patient visits the healthcare provider who records the vaccination status in the medical chart.
It is apparent that the details of reasons for patient choices for vaccine status are not specified in codes for COVID-19 vaccines, but the CDC has some two months to fix this.
There are no specific codes yet for “refused to divulge COVID-19 vaccination status” or “unknown COVID-19 vaccination status,” but these codes are likely to be added at some point.
What is the usage for which this information is planned?
moar: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-vaccine-status-international-disease-codes/