The Impact of Glaucoma Coding in a Large Claims Database

Purpose Coding variation and its impact on identified populations is a major concern in database analyses. We assessed potential differences in demographics and healthcare charges among patients with open-angle glaucoma identified through different International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Rev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of ophthalmology 2007-05, Vol.143 (5), p.867-870
Main Authors: Lee, Paul P, Levin, Leonard A, Walt, John G, Chiang, Tina H, Doyle, John J, Stern, Lee S, Dolgitser, Margarita
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Algorithms
Codes
Comorbidity
Databases, Factual - classification
Delivery of Health Care - classification
Diagnosis-Related Groups - classification
Fees and Charges
Female
Gender
Glaucoma
Glaucoma, Open-Angle - classification
Glaucoma, Open-Angle - diagnosis
Health Resources - utilization
Humans
International Classification of Diseases
Male
Medical Records - classification
Medical Records - standards
Middle Aged
Ophthalmology
Patients
Retrospective Studies
Standard deviation
United States
Variance analysis
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Summary:Purpose Coding variation and its impact on identified populations is a major concern in database analyses. We assessed potential differences in demographics and healthcare charges among patients with open-angle glaucoma identified through different International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) coding algorithms. Design Retrospective database analysis. Methods Three glaucoma cohorts were identified based on hierarchical inclusion of patients with ≥2 glaucoma ICD-9 codes (PharMetrics, Inc, Watertown, Massachusetts, USA, 1998 to 2003). Descriptive statistics and healthcare charges were assessed for each cohort. Results The three cohorts included 64,380, 14,705, and 4,225 unique patients each. Although significant differences in age, gender, region, payer type, product type, and medical comorbidities existed among the three cohorts, these differences had little impact on resource consumption when the cohorts were combined, given the smaller number of patients outside of the primary cohort. Conclusions Glaucoma coding variation in administrative data sets has limited impact on analyses of resource consumption among open-angle glaucoma patients.
ISSN:0002-9394
1879-1891
DOI:10.1016/j.ajo.2006.12.034