I believe it's for statistical purposes(if it's anything like death codes here in Aus).

If there is an uptick in dolphin strikes, the Government(or some environmental management group) may do something about the dolphin problem.

Speaking of Australian death codes: http://deathmatch.me/

Or if there's a sudden lack of dolphin related accidents it might be good to look into whether or not the end of the world is eminent[0].

[0] http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Dolphins

Wouldn't it also hide increases of "injured by a sea creature" that could be more useful in policy making.

I don't think so, though I don't know in practice I imagine there would be categories that aggregate the individual codes.

The only semi-plausible explanation is some weird insurance plan crafted for sea-world (et-al) staff. Neither Orcas nor (other) Dolphins were ever recorded to attack human beings out of captivity anyhow.

Unless an over-amorous encounter could be considered an attack. Seems to be a real problem, wonder if there's a code for 'loved to death(drowning) by dolphin'

https://www.google.com/#q=dolphin+amorous

This was puzzling me (as a UK citizen). A clue in another comment hinted that it is about insurance.

Still not sure why a dolphin would be covered in a policy but not an orca...

I don't think that it would be used to decide whether an incident was covered or not, just to categorize it for statistical purposes or something.

It's the kind of data that might be used to say "shark attacks are up 23% on the US east coast over the last three years".

It would be interesting to read a design document (or post-hoc technical analysis) that enumerates all the purposes that medical billing codes are used for. Maybe it would explain the easily-mocked craziness.

Orca is a "killer" whale -- you were duly warned. ;)

These are diagnosis codes, so it wraps up to national-level reporting - i.e. 35 people were injured by dolphins this year.

Also, insurance companies get crazy nit-picky with what types of treatment they'll cover for diagnoses. There is an entire industry around scrubbing claims and making sure treatment meets the diagnosis codes.

Pretty sure my co only covers Dolphin and NOT Orca strikes.

Insurance billing. These need to be exact in order to correlate to a) rates negotiated b) data collected for future underwriting c) exact repayment. Medical billing is a crazy world.

Isn't all this coding a U.S. phenomenon? I've read that single-payer systems like Canada's require orders of magnitude less labor and paperwork.

In the UK there is still a lot of this, even though healthcare is centrally funded and (somewhat) centrally administered.

I worked briefly with a company doing medical transcription. It opened my eyes to how much billing-related paperwork goes on in hospital back offices.

Probably because orcas are so much larger.

Clearly that is the medical code for being struck by a Mahi-mahi, which can reach nearly 60lbs and travel at speeds above 55mph. /end sarcasm

Severity of injury?

I've gotta believe that some dolphin injuries are more severe than some orca injuries.

At any rate, once the code describes a situation so specific that it may only classify a few injuries a year, what possible benefit may come from that?

Am I missing a table since I can find the orca thing, but it doesn't have a listing for bear. Please tell me bears are a bigger danger than orcas?

// holy crud, the comment section is now a rabbit hole - good job karim

Yeah, bears are not specifically mentioned. You'd have to file it by W55.8: contact with other mammal.

You guys are either pulling my leg, or I just entered a Volgon message board by mistake.

Nope, we are quite serious. Download https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/Downloads/2016-Cod... and enjoy.

So, an orca (9 codes) and a squirrel (6 codes) have their own damn codes but a friggin bear is in the other category?!? Heck, wolves, coyotes, bears, and mountain lions all don't have their own codes. I see a lobbying effort that needs to go on to show the true nature of dangerous animals in the US and quit hiding these attacks in the other category.

On the other hand, I do like the difference between cats and dogs:

  W540XXA Bitten by dog, initial encounter
  W540XXD Bitten by dog, subsequent encounter
  W540XXS Bitten by dog, sequela
  W541XXA Struck by dog, initial encounter
  W541XXD Struck by dog, subsequent encounter
  W541XXS Struck by dog, sequela
  W548XXA Other contact with dog, initial encounter
  W548XXD Other contact with dog, subsequent encounter
  W548XXS Other contact with dog, sequela
  W5501XA Bitten by cat, initial encounter
  W5501XD Bitten by cat, subsequent encounter
  W5501XS Bitten by cat, sequela
  W5503XA Scratched by cat, initial encounter
  W5503XD Scratched by cat, subsequent encounter
  W5503XS Scratched by cat, sequela
  W5509XA Other contact with cat, initial encounter
  W5509XD Other contact with cat, subsequent encounter
  W5509XS Other contact with cat, sequela

Conspiracy theory: the diagnosis codes were compiled by Bears who tried to avoid attention to their own kind.