WASHINGTON – The National Library of Medicine has published a draft map linking content from SNOMED Clinical Terms to ICD-9-CM billing codes, as a precursor to the development of similar maps.

The map aims to support administrative reporting and reimbursement functions where SNOMED CT is the terminology for clinical descriptive purposes, said Betsy Humphreys, NLM deputy director.

The draft consists of about 5,000 mappings of the SNOMED CT terms most commonly used by Kaiser Permanente and the University of Nebraska.  

The Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms is a standard medical vocabulary for use in electronic health records for sharing information across specialties and sites of care. SNOWMED-CT is considered a requirement for more advanced forms of health information exchange and analysis.

The International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, Clinical Modification, standardizes terms for medical billing and payment claims.

The NLM is looking for users to “test drive” and provide comments about the map from Dec. 1 through Feb. 1, 2010.

“The results from this test will inform and influence the development of related maps including SNOMED CT to ICD-10-CM [International Classifications of Diseases, 10th revision, Clinical Modification] and ICD-10-PCS [International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, Procedure Coding System],” Humphreys said.