Dave Rowe's Blog » ICD9 http://blog.roweware.com Ramblings about things I think I know... Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:28:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 DB Design – ICD9 Data http://blog.roweware.com/2009/12/01/db-design-icd9-data/ http://blog.roweware.com/2009/12/01/db-design-icd9-data/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:02:48 +0000 Dave Rowe http://blog.roweware.com/?p=140 ICD9 data are the diagnosis and procedure codes used by insurance companies to categorize, well, diagnoses and procedures to be determined / performed by medical professionals. Typically, if you visit the doctor for an ailment and file insurance, your provider will list the reason for the visit, any diagnoses, and any procedures performed. This is then sent to the insurance company for processing. They can then use codes to indicate if the procedure is covered, as well as, (for example) determine if the diagnosis was a pre-existing condition. The data is a simple hierarchical structure which is shown in the following diagram.

ERD for storing ICD9 data

ERD for storing ICD9 data

We see that diagnoses can have sub-diagnoses, etc. I used this simple structure, and added a qualifying column of ‘record_type’ to indicate if the code listed was an actual diagnosis, or a section header. Sections of diagnoses are part of the data, and can be used in searching the database. This diagram offers a simple and quick design to handle the data given.

Comments are welcome.

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