Fwd: Medical Indexing/News of the Weird

[Joel S. Berson]

 From another list:

>Someone wrote:
>>I saw this in our local (San Diego Reader) weekly newspaper's "News
>>of the Weird" section:
>>
>>"An update of the official index for classifying medical conditions
>>(for research, quality control, and insurance claims) was released
>>recently, to take effect in October 2013, and replaced the current
>>18,000 codes with 140,000 much more specific ones. A September Wall
>>Street Journal report noted, for example, 72 different codes for
>>injuries involving birds, depending on the type. "Bitten by turtle"
>>is different from "struck by turtle." Different codes cover
>>injuries in "opera houses," on squash courts, and exactly where in
>>or around a mobile home an injury occurred. "Walked into lamppost,
>>initial encounter" is distinct from "walked into lamppost,
>>subsequent encounter."  Codes cover conditions stemming from
>>encounters wiht extraterrestrials and conditions resulting from
>>"burn due to water skis on fire." "Bizarre personal appearance" has
>>a code as well as "very low level of personal hygiene."
>
>[I replied:]
>Reminds me of Edward G. Robinson's recital in "Double Indemnity"
>(1944) of all the ways one could (successfully) commit suicide:
>
>"Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have
>you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race,
>by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of
>day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by
>leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by *types* of poison, such as
>corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein,
>and so forth; suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high
>places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks,
>under the feet of horses, from *steamboats*. But, Mr. Norton, of all
>the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap
>from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that
>train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles
>an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that
>with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No. No
>soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the
>nose, and you know it."
>
>(Now we'll have to pay through the nose in increased premiums for
>medical insurance as doctors take longer to figure out how to code
>our illnesses.)
>
>Joel

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