That's exactly how the codes are designed. Categories, sub-categories, etc to describe what caused it, what damage it did, and how many times it did it. For exa

That's exactly how the codes are designed. Categories, sub-categories, etc to describe what caused it, what damage it did, and how many times it did it. For example, let's take an example of an "Angel of Death" situation, where a nurse has been repeatedly overdosing a patient with morphine in order to try to kill them. You're going to want to discuss all of the details of what went on, so you choose T41.1X3S [1], which is Poisoning, or other effects from anesthetics. First you look up where poisoning is, T41. Then you look up the code for anesthetics, which is 1X. It's intentional, so that's class 3. From there, you can describe each incident, A for the first, D for the second, and S for any incidents after that. If you look at other areas, like an insect bite, you'd do similar, and some up with S80.262A [2]. Standardizing the format for the codes is really useful, because it can give precise instructions as to what happened. But, you can quickly figure out what happened byt the first code, with the code after the decimal point giving the exact details, if needed. Yes, it allows for ridiculous combinations, but any decently designed charting system has similar. Medicare, for example, has beneficiary codes extending to Second disabled surviving divorced husband [3]. [1] http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/S00-T88/T36-T50/T41-/T41.1X3S http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/S00-T88/T36-T50/T41-/... [2] http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/S00-T88/S80-S89/S80-/S80.262A http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/S00-T88/S80-S89/S80-/... [3] http://www.ncdoi.com/_Publications/Beneficiary%20Identification%20Codes_SNE1.pdf http://www.ncdoi.com/_Publications/Beneficiary%20Identificat...