Term: External Cause of Injury Codes

Glossary Definition

Last Updated: 2010-08-11

Definition:

External cause of injury codes are used to define environmental events, circumstances and conditions such as the cause of injury, poisoning, and other adverse effects related to injury hospitalizations and mortality. Excluded from this list and from our definition of injuries are injuries resulting from misadventures during surgical or medical care, and adverse drug reactions.

In ICD-9-CM, external cause of injury codes are often referred to as E-codes, because they all began with the letter E. However, in ICD-10-CA, the coding of injuries uses different letters of the alphabet (ICD-10-CA codes beginning with the letters V, W, X, and Y).

For more information on external cause of injury codes and listings of the ICD-9 and ICD-10 external cause of injury codes used in the most recent MCHP research, please see the External Cause of Injury Codes and Categories concept.

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