Key result
Hospital ICD-10 coding incorrectly identified postoperative venous thromboembolism in 22.4% of 232 patients, overrepresenting true clinical events.
Why the study?
After a national benchmarking body identified the institution as an outlier for high numbers of postoperative venous thromboembolism events, this study assessed the accuracy of hospital ICD-10 coding for VTE incidence and severity.
How accurate is hospital ICD-10 coding for identifying the true incidence and clinical relevance of postoperative venous thromboembolism?
Observational (n=232)
No
How accurate is hospital ICD-10 coding for identifying the true incidence and clinical relevance of postoperative venous thromboembolism?
Hospital ICD-10 coding overrepresents the true number of clinically relevant postoperative VTE events due to high rates of incorrect coding and inclusion of asymptomatic incidental findings.
Administrative coding misclassifies postoperative VTE; leaves open reliability of ICD data for incidence reporting and quality metrics.
The Health Roundtable, a national benchmarking body, identified our institution as an outlier with a high number of postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) events. We performed a retrospective study to determine the accuracy of hospital coding for the incidence and severity of postoperative VTE. Of 232 patients identified from ICD-10 coding, 52 (22.4%) were incorrectly coded. Approximately one third (n = 68) of all VTE were asymptomatic, diagnosed incidentally. Thus, coding data are inherently flawed with inaccuracy and overrepresent the true number of VTE events, with a substantial proportion of limited clinical relevance.
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Bortz et al. (2023) conducted an observational in Postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) (n=232). Hospital ICD-10 coding was evaluated on Incorrectly coded VTE events. Hospital ICD-10 coding incorrectly identified postoperative venous thromboembolism in 22.4% of 232 patients, overrepresenting true clinical events.
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