Healthcanc

For those of you who do not know the meaning of ICD-10-CM , it is the International Classification of Diseases, a lengthy clinical catalog system conjured up by the World Health Organization  (WHO) to designate medical codes. Physicians and clinicians everywhere are bound by them, use theses codes for billing and diagnostic purposes. The ICD-10-CM replaces ICD-9 on October 1, 2015. To bill, we need to code, and start with  procedures . Your primary care doctor perfunctorily codes hundreds of procedures, ranging from removing a dot on your skin, to listening to lungs, heart beats, peeking down throats and wiggling toes. General check-ups might be called  wellness visits , now, because things just have to keep changing. Mental health professionals have only a few procedure codes, a handful, really. Is this an initial evaluation? Group or family therapy? A 15 , 30 , 45 , or maybe a 52 minute -hour? There are a few more. Then come the codes for diagnoses , naturally. Her...

Were it not for my practice, and now, the last section of the remarkable DSM-5, I wouldn't be blogging about this. It feels like such a scrooge-thing to do. A kid finds this awesome present, an X box 360 under the tree, and his mom reads ENT and warns. . . Enjoy. But remember. It is a starter drug. Like our first flip phone was a starter drug, too, right? We can laugh, but couples do present in therapy, meaning they are in therapy because they disagree (fight) about one of them having a compulsion to play games online with friends. He isn't finishing his second shift responsibilities, and worse, isn't coming to bed at night. Every night is Christmas, up late waiting for an online Santa to lose. Competition rocks, really raises those endorphins. At the end of the DSM-5, page 795, we find a new disorder proposed for further study . Internet Gaming Disorder. No code yet. Interestingly, Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder is among these disorders under consideration. ...

First, I apologize for blogging so rarely the past six months. We say that writing can be therapeutic, but you do need a certain amount of neuro-transmitters, endorphins, serotonin, zipping around upstairs to put out.  But that's going to change. After all, I've studied the new DSM 5 DSM 5 and there's much to say about diagnosis.  Yeah, it was expensive. But mainly because time heals.  I'm beginning to notice things again, like in the old days, when something, any random thing, would happen and I would tell FD: I must blog about this. That's happening again. The job, when a parent passes away, as any therapist will tell you, is to grieve, but also, to get out there, be in the world .When you're running on empty, that can be hard. So for some of us the best therapy is to sit around and read, preferably in some yoga posture, learn new things. Or listen to the radio, watch TV. Listening to NPR last week I heard two journalists talking about books that might make n...