As of October 1st, ICD10 (International Classification of Diseases version 10)is the official coding system for diagnostic and procedure codes in the U.S. It might have been more fitting to have the conversion from ICD9 to ICD10 occur on October 10th (10/10), or even better on October 10th, 2010.

We certainly could have had a 10/10/10 conversion date. Actually, the initial U.S. conversion date was set for 2011, but the World Health Organization (WHO)released the full ICD-10 in 1994 and the U.S. implemented the system for mortality (death certificates) in 1999. All other major developed countries have been using ICD10 for some time with reimbursement or case mix purposes including the United Kingdom (1995; Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,Sweden) (1994 – 1997); France (1997); Australia (1998); Belgium (1999); Germany (2000) and Canada (2001).

But given the U.S. still isn't officially on the metric system, we should be congratulated to have to have moved off the ICD9 system we've been using since 1979, and have adopted ICD10 by 2015, taking us from 14,000 to 70,000 diagnostic codes and from 4,000 to 72,000 procedure codes.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a nice article on the topic for those not as conversant with the topic: 70,000 Ways to Classify Ailments. The article includes a link a fun database to lookup ICD10 codes for more offbeat items.

Three healthsprocket lists have just been posted with some of these more unusual codes:
Actual ICD10 Codes for Opera, Crocheting, Prison Swimming, Walking into Lamposts & More
Actual ICD10 Codes for Turtle Encounters
Actual ICD10 Codes for Spacecraft Accidents