BETHESDA, MD – The U.S. National Library of Medicine has released a draft rules-based mapping from SNOMED Clinical Terms to the International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM).

The map was designed to support semi-automated administrative reporting and reimbursement for healthcare services in U.S. healthcare organizations. The NLM is seeking users to "test drive" and provide feedback for the map, which will guide the development of related maps.

The draft map consists of approximately 5,000 mappings representing the SNOMED CT terms most commonly used by Kaiser Permanente and the University of Nebraska. It's designed to support administrative reporting and reimbursement processes originating with data sets where SNOMED CT is the core terminology for clinical descriptive purposes.

The map provides a validated concept-based mapping to ICD-9-CM, recognizing that in some selected cases, further processing of ICD-9-CM codes may be required for specialized business applications.

Users can evaluate and test the map by downloading it from the NLM Web site. From Dec. 1 through Feb. 1, 2010, they'll be able to provide feedback to the NLM and CAP STS. More details about the feedback process will be posted on the Web page by Dec. 1.

"We strongly encourage testing by people who intend to use the map for the billing use case," said Betsy Humphreys, deputy director of the NLM. "The results from this test will inform and influence the development of related maps including SNOMED CT to ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS."

SNOMED Terminology Solutions, a division of the College of American Pathologists, developed the map on behalf of the NLM. CAP STS and the American Health Information Management Association Foundation, on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, completed a collaborative review and validation of the draft map to ensure that the result accurately reflects the meaning and use of ICD-9-CM.

The mapping is provided for software vendors and the information technology community at large on the assumption that they will employ the data to create functionality to support semi-automated administrative and reimbursement reporting for a clinical data record that uses SNOMED CT.

SNOMED CT – a globally recognized controlled medical vocabulary – provides a common language for electronic health applications that enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing and aggregating health data across specialties and sites of care.

"The final map will become a critical component for healthcare IT systems in the United States, linking SNOMED CT and ICD-9-CM for streamlined reimbursement and administrative reporting," said Kevin Donnelly, vice president and general manager of CAP STS.