In the United States, we are now required by the ICD-10 system of coding to provide a seven-digit code when billing for glaucoma.
The seventh digit describes the severity of the glaucoma as unspecified (0), mild (1), moderate (2), severe (3) or indeterminate (4). It is no longer good enough to simply describe the glaucoma as open-angle glaucoma unilateral or bilateral, as we did in the ICD-9 era. We must also code the severity to get properly reimbursed and justify our diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations as well as our frequency of patient examinations.
There are many classification