Every health care provider will be required to use a new coding system for health care services starting October 1, 2013. The new system will expand the current number of codes that classify health care services from 18,000 to 140,000.

On the bright side, the codes will be able to tell health insurance companies where a majority of injuries take place. For instance, they will know whether an injury happened in the kitchen of a mobile home, in the dining room in the mobile home, in the bedroom, bathroom, driveway, garage, swimming pool, garden, yard, or other place or unspecified place in the mobile home. There are 10 codes just for describing where an injury occurred in the mobile home and then there are more codes for describing the injury.

Think it’s a bit unnecessary? There are only 312 animal codes reports The Wall Street Journal. There are nine different ways to describe how someone was injured by a turtle including: three different ways to categorize being bitten by a turtle, three ways to categorize being struck by a turtle and three ways to categorize other contact with a turtle.

Had an incident with a chicken? There are 72 codes for injuries connected to birds.

Hurt yourself on water skis while jumping through a loop of fire? There are 27 codes associated with being injured on water-skis with 3 different codes for a burn due to water-skis on fire.

Will the codes make health care providers and health insurance companies more effective? Will it help with preventing injuries or illnesses?

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