Impact of ICD-9 to ICD-10 Coding Transition on Prevalence Trends in Neurology

Objective: To determine the effect of ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM coding transition on the point prevalence and longitudinal trends of sixteen neurologic diagnoses.

Methods: We used 2014-2017 data from the National Inpatient Sample to identify hospitalizations with one of sixteen common neurologic diagnoses. We used published ICD-9-CM codes to identify hospitalizations from 1/1/14-9/30/15 and used the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s MapIt tool to convert them to equivalent ICD-10-CM codes for 10/1/15-12/31/17. We compared the prevalence of each diagnosis before vs. after the ICD coding transition using logistic regression and used interrupted time series regression to model the longitudinal change in disease prevalence across time.

Results: The average monthly prevalence of subarachnoid hemorrhage was stable before the coding transition (average monthly increase of 4.32 admissions, 99.7% CI: -8.38 to 17.01) but increased after the coding transition (average monthly increase of 24.32 admissions, 99.7% CI: 15.71-32.93). Otherwise, there were no significant differences in longitudinal rate of change in disease prevalence over time between ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM. Six of 16 neurologic diagnoses (37.5%) experienced significant changes in cross-sectional prevalence during the coding transition, most notably for status epilepticus (OR 0.30, 99.7% CI: 0.26-0.34).

Interpretation: The transition from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM coding affects prevalence estimates for status epilepticus and other neurologic disorders, a potential source of bias for future longitudinal neurologic studies. Studies should limit to one coding system or use interrupted time series models to adjust for changes in coding patterns until new neurology-specific ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion maps can be developed.