ICD-10-AM Coding Standards
The Australian Coding Standards are written with the objective
of satisfying sound coding convention according to ICD-10-AM and ACHI.
They apply to all public and private hospitals in Australia. The
ongoing revision of the Australian Coding Standards ensures that
they reflect changes in clinical practice, clinical classification
amendments, Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups (AR-DRG)
grouper updates and various user requirements of inpatient data
collections.
The ICD-10-AM and ACHI coding manual is updated biennially in Australia.
The Australian Coding Standards are designed to be used in conjunction
with ICD-10-AM and ACHI.
Standard practise is that all hospitals update biennially in Australia.The Australian
Coding Standards are designed to be used in conjuction with ICD-10-AM and ACHI.
ICD-10-AM and ACHI tabular Lists include an annotation of 
next to certain codes which indicates that an Australian Coding
Standards exists which will assist in the application of the code.
How to use this document
Standards in this document are categorised by site and/or system
according to the specialty to which the diagnosis or procedure
relates.
For example, the standard on 'gastroenteritis' is in Chapter
XI, Digestive System, even though the standard includes discussion
of code A09 Diarrhoea and gastroenteritis of presumed infectious
origin which appears in Chapter I, Certain infectious and parasitic
diseases of the Disease Tabular List of ICD-10-AM (Volume 1).
Operations and procedures are also categorised by site. For example,
'tonsillitis' is discussed in Chapter 8, Ear, Nose, Mouth and
Throat (ENMT). Any procedures which can be performed on many sites
are included in the 'Procedures' chapter.
A procedure which involves adjacent sites is categorised into
one of the two applicable chapters and should be referenced in
the index in the first instance. For example, 'Skull base surgery'
involves ENT, plastic and neurosurgeons and is discussed in Chapter
6, Nervous System.
The term 'clinician' is used throughout the document and refers
to the treating medical officer but may refer to other clinicians
such as midwives, nurses and allied health professionals. In order
to assign a code associated with a particular clinician's documentation,
the documented iniformation must be appropriate to the clinician's
discipline.
Numbering system of standard within chapters
Each standard is allocated a four digit ACS number. These numbers
are generated by the NCCH as new standards are created and entered
into a central database. The number is unique for each standard.
When a standard is deleted, the standard and its unique number
is retained in the database to allow for time series analysis
of coding convention.
The numbers should be used as an identifier if clinial coders
wish to contact the NCCH about a particular standard.
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