ICD-10 ... it's the code which classifies and categories patient diagnoses and problems. For example, it's not enough to call something a venous leg ulcer because no one would be able to understand what you mean. But if you say I87.319, chronic venous hypertension (idiopathic) with ulcer of unspecified lower extremity, then all of a sudden everyone knows exactly what problem you are talking about. Of course, you can be even more specific by using either I87.311 or I87.312 if you actually know which leg, left or right, the ulceration is on.   Classifying diseases can be both useful, such as when trying to analyze large patient data sets, and mind-blowingly painful, such as when patients don't fit neatly into one of the over seventy thousand categories provided by ICD-10.  Why are we using such a weird system? Is it really the best we can do?   

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