Mental health disorders are unique from other medical diseases and, therefore, diagnosing
them can be challenging. Because of this, the American Psychiatric Association (APA)
developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM is
a standardized classification of only mental health disorders that assists providers in
accurately diagnosing mental health issues. The current version, DSM-5, lists all mental
disorders and their corresponding ICD-10-CM diagnostic codes. DSM provides the
information needed to accurately code mental health disorders using ICD-10. Both the
DSM and ICD-10 are ways to classify mental health disorders, but DSM is only used
fordiagnosing
mental health disorders, while ICD-10 is used forcoding
all medical
conditions.
Unfortunately, there are times when the DSM-5 disorders don’t align with the
ICD-10 codes because “ICD-10-CM was developed while the diagnostic classification in
effect was DSM-IV” (Giannangelo, 2019). The ICD-11, not currently used in the U.S.,
will include additional mental health disorder chapters and better “harmonize the two
classifications systems as much as possible” (Giannangelo, 2019).
References:
Giannangelo, K., (2019).Healthcare Code Sets, Clinical Terminologies, and
Classification Systems,Fourth Edition. American Health Information Management
Association (AHIMA).
