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On October 1, 2013, the US Deptment of Health and Human Services will expect all of America's health care providers to have transitioned their business bookkeeping and transaction records to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Although the latest set of the so-called ICD codes (International Classification of Diseases), called ICD-10, were rolled out in 1992, a study by the Medical Group Management Association estimates that the cost for each U.S. hospital simply to change its forms and retrain its office managers could exceed $2 million.

Why the change? The term "disease" has been stretched somewhat since the ICD was first implemented after World War II. Now the system is being used to classify every kind of conceivable ailment; and now healthcare professionals and office managers are being expected to comprehend a system of codes that has expanded from just over 10,000 classifications (ICD-9) to potentially over 140,000 (ICD-10).