Sources
There are three sources of ICD codes.
cms: Codes from the ICD-9-CM, ICD-9-PCS, ICD-10-CM, and ICD-10-PCS standards.
who: Codes from World Health Organization.
cdc: Codes from CDC Mortality coding standard.
Fiscal and Calendar Years
When reporting years there is a mix of fiscal and calendar years.
Fiscal years are the United States Federal Government fiscal years, running
from October 1 to September 30. For example, fiscal year 2013 started October
1 2012 and ended on September 30 2013.
Calendar years run January 1 to December 31.
Within the ICD data there are columns
known_start, known_end, assignable_start, assignable_end,
desc_start and desc_end. For ICD codes with src == "cms", these are
fiscal years. For codes with src == "cdc" or src == "who" these are
calendar years.
known_start is the first fiscal or calendar year (depending on source) that
the medicalcoder package as definitive source data for. ICD-9-CM started in
the United States in fiscal year 1980. Source information that could be
downloaded from the CDC and CMS and added to the source code for the
medicalcoder package goes back to 1997. As such 1997 is the "known start"
known_end is the last fiscal or calendar year (depending on source)
for which we have definitive source data for. For ICD-9-CM and ICD-9-PCS
that is 2015. For ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS, which are active, it is just the
last year of known data. ICD-10 from the WHO ends in 2019.
Header and Assignable Codes
"Assignable" indicates that the code is the most granular for the source.
Ideally codes are reported with the greatest level of detail but that is not
always the case. Also, the greatest level of detail can differ between
sources.
Example: C86 is a header code for cms and who because codes C86.0, C86.1,
C86.2, C86.3, C86.4, C86.5, and C86.6 all exist in both standards. No code
with a fifth digit exists in the who so all these four digit codes are
'assignable.' In the cms standard, C86.0 was assignable through fiscal
year 2024. In fiscal year 2025 codes C86.00 and C86.01 were added making
C86.0 a header code and C86.00 and C86.01 assignable codes.