Diagnostic code book that uses primarily a numeric code system for classifying diseases and operations to assist collection of uniform and comparable health information. These codes are used by physicians and inpatient and outpatient facilities to effectively document the medical condition, symptom, or complaint of each patient when submitting insurance claims to insurance companies for payment. Its conventions include special terms, punctuation marks, abbreviations, or symbols to communicate special instructions to the coder. If the conventions are overlooked, the code number chosen may be incorrect. A code system to replace this is ICD-10, which has an implementation date set for October 1, 2013.