As you read this article, it will be helpful if you have the ICD-10-CM book in front of you. You can download a pdf copy here.

And even if you don’t download the entire book, download the Official Guidelines instead.

There are four cooperating parties to ICD-10-CM. They publish and update the official guidelines for coding and reporting. These parties are the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, (CMS), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and the National Center for Health Statistics. (NCHS).

Section I of the book is “Conventions, General Coding Guidelines and Chapter Specific Guidelines.” This document is updated annually. Prior to Covid, codes were updated annually as well, but now there is the option for an April release for new codes. In the guidelines, narrative changes appear in bold, text that is underlined indicates that it was moved, and copy in italics indicates revisions to heading changes. The code set includes the Alphabetic Index to Diseases and Injuries, the Table of Neoplasms, the Table of Drugs and Chemicals, the Index to External Causes of Injuries, and the Tabular Listing.