Mapping from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 9th to 10th Revision for Research in Biologics and Biosimilars Using Administrative Healthcare Data.

Purpose The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) mandated the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes on October 1, 2015. Postmarketing surveillance of newly marketed drugs, including novel biologics and biosimilars, requires a robust approach to convert ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes for study variables. We examined three mapping methods for health conditions (HCs) of interest to the Biologics and Biosimilars Collective Intelligence Consortium (BBCIC) and compared their prevalence. Methods Using CMS General Equivalence Mappings, we applied forward-backward mapping (FBM) to 108 HCs and secondary mapping (SM) and tertiary mapping (TM) to seven preselected HCs. A physician reviewed the mapped ICD-10 codes. The prevalence of the 108 HCs defined by ICD-9 versus ICD-10 codes was examined in BBCIC's distributed research network (September 1, 2012 to March 31, 2018). We visually assessed prevalence trends of these HCs and applied a threshold of 20% level change in ICD-9 versus ICD-10 prevalence. Results Nearly four times more ICD-10 codes were mapped by SM and TM than FBM, but most were irrelevant or nonspecific. For conditions like myocardial infarction, SM or TM did not generate additional ICD-10 codes. Through visual inspection, one-fifth of the HCs had inconsistent ICD-9 versus ICD-10 prevalence trends. 13% of HCs had a level change greater than +/-20%. Conclusion FBM is generally the most efficient way to convert ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes, yet manual review of converted ICD-10 codes is recommended even for FBM. The lack of existing guidance to compare the performance of ICD-9 with ICD-10 codes led to challenges in empirically determining the quality of conversions.