ICA was founded in 1909 to promote efficiency, effectiveness, and high standards of performance in claim administration by member companies; provide a forum for research, education, and the exchange of ideas relating to various aspects of claim administration; and devise and effect measures for the benefit of policyholders and beneficiaries in matters relating to claims. ICA has been at the forefront of addressing a broad range of life, health, and disability claim issues including those relevant in the day-to-day operation of claim departments. The ICA provides a forum for information exchange and a program of education tailored to the needs of its member life and health insurance companies, reinsurers, managed care companies, TPAs, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations worldwide.

Medical code set developed and maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO) primarily to classify causes of death. Eventually this code set became the standardized system of codes for diagnoses used to submit insurance claims for reimbursement to insurance carriers and for use in Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act transactions.

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.

Diagnostic code book first published in 1976 for classifying morphology of neoplasms. Of the five digits, the first four identify the histology of the neoplasm and the fifth identifies the neoplasm as either benign, uncertain, carcinoma in situ, primary malignant, secondary malignant, or unknown whether primary or secondary. Cancer registry centers in hospitals and ambulatory care centers use this code system for classification of tumors. Also known as morphology of neoplasms .

Diagnostic code book that uses a system for classifying diseases and operations to assist collection of uniform and comparable health information. It has been modified, will be implemented on October 1, 2013, and will replace ICD-9-CM Volumes 1 and 2 when submitting insurance claims for billing hospital and physician office medical services. Presently it is used for mortality reporting in the United States.

Procedural code system developed by 3M Health Information Systems (HIS) under contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). When implemented on October 1, 2013, it will replace ICD-9-CM Volume 3 for hospital inpatient procedure reporting in the United States.

Classification coding system developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) that is used to report an individual’s functional capabilities or limits in situations that are the result of disease. The disease is not identified. This reporting system is not used in the United States but is being investigated at the National Center for Health Statistics for possible future use.

Code system developed in Australia and distributed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to other countries. It is used to report interventions and procedures for the purpose of collecting data.