OPCS-4 is a statistical classification for clinical coding of hospital interventions and procedures undertaken by the NHS. On 4 November 2019, OPCS 4.9 Classification of Interventions and Procedures was released. The implementation date is 1 April 2020.
OPCS-4 is updated every three years to reflect the current NHS clinical practice to support aggregate data for statistical purposes and reimbursement.
OPCS-4.9 contains updates released by the NHS Digital Terminology and Classifications Delivery Service and includes updates submitted by the NHS, NHS Digital, DHSC, NHS England and other organizations via the OPCS-4 Requests Portal.
Here you can see a brief summary of core changes OPCS-4.8 to OPCS-4.9:
- 28 new three-character category codes
- 223 new four-character subcategory codes
- Five (5) retired four-character subcategory codes
- One (1) changed three-character category code description
- 33 changes to four-character subcategory code descriptions
- 65 changes to three-character category code involving a change to note only (new, deleted or changed includes, excludes and notes)
- 83 changes to four-character subcategory code involving a change to note only (new, deleted or changed includes, excludes and notes)
- 352 new index entries
- 43 deleted index entries
The list of 28 new three-character category codes includes:
- C91 “Operations on anterior segment of eye”
- H71 “Therapeutic endoscopic operations on enteric pouch”
- M07 “Therapeutic ureteroscopic operations on kidney”
- M24 “Other urinary diversion”
- Q58 “Delivery of terminated fetus”
- R09 “Open operations on fetus”
- R11 “Other therapeutic percutaneous operations on fetus”
- R13 “Other operations on fetus”
- S29 “Distant flap of skin and bone”
- S32 “Distant flap of skin and multiple tissues”
- U38 “Other diagnostic endocrinology”
- U41 “Provocation test”
- V69 “Other primary decompression operations on cervical spine”
- V70 “Other revisional decompression operations on cervical spine”
- O35 “Open operations on joint”
- O37 “Reverse polarity total prosthetic replacement of shoulder joint using cement”
- O38 “Reverse polarity total prosthetic replacement of shoulder joint not using”
- O39 “Reverse polarity total prosthetic replacement of shoulder joint”
- O40 “Reverse polarity hybrid prosthetic replacement of shoulder joint using”
- X69 “Other radiotherapy”
- Y28 “Insertion of other material into organ NOC”
- Y45 “Approach to organ under other control”
- Y68 “Other approach to organ under image control”
- O44 “Other external beam radiotherapy”
- O34 “Other biliary tract”
- O36 “Other mouth”
- O43 “Part of heart”
- O45 “Other aorta”
See the full details here.
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