AHRQ has released the Clinical Classifications Software Refined (CCSR) for ICD-10-CM diagnoses, which aggregates more than 70,000 ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes into a manageable number of clinically meaningful categories. The categories are organized across 21 body systems, which generally follow the structure of the ICD-10-CM diagnosis chapters. This initial release of the CCSR replaces the beta version of the CCS for ICD-10-CM diagnoses and applies to all ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes through fiscal year 2019. It provides a means by which to identify specific clinical conditions using ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes. The CCSR for ICD-10-CM capitalizes on the specificity of the ICD-10-CM coding scheme by creating new clinical categories that did not exist in previous versions of the CCS tool and allowing ICD-10-CM codes to be classified in more than one category. The CCSR is intended to be used analytically to examine patterns of health care in terms of cost, utilization and outcomes, rank utilization by diagnoses, and risk adjust by clinical condition.

Refinements to the software include:

• Capitalizing on the specificity of ICD-10-CM diagnosis coding by adding new CCSR categories to identify conditions, not possible under previous versions of the CCS
• Allowing individual ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes to be cross-classified to more than one CCSR category, where applicable, without prioritization, allowing researchers greater flexibility with their analyses
• Providing users with the option of two different output file versions

The CCSR for ICD-10-CM diagnoses can be downloaded from the Tools & Software section of HCUP-US.