The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quietly introduced a new program to track people who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 after they visit a doctor or go to a hospital, according to documents and a video highlighted by National File but published back in 2021.
In September 2021 the ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee held a meeting to discuss new ICD-10 codes that the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) wanted to be created for marking people as “Partially Vaccinated for COVID-19,” “Unvaccinated for COVID-19,” and “Other underimmunization status.”
ICD-10 codes, stored in a patient health record, are used by doctors to categorize patients and insurance providers for billing.
ICD-10-CM codes were introduced by the CDC to track patients who are not vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and those who fall under the “other underimmunization status” category. The ICD-10 committee said that those who had adverse reactions to a vaccine in the past would be categorized as unvaccinated or partially vaccinated even if they cannot get other vaccines or boosters. The new codes were implemented in April 2022.
The Topic Packet prepared for the meeting said: “During the current time of the COVID-19 pandemic, immunizations have provided protection for many people, but there is interest in being able to track people who are not immunized or only partially immunized. At the current time, this is a significant modifiable risk factor for morbidity and mortality, and of interest for clinical reasons, as well as of value for public health. NCHS is proposing creation of codes for unvaccinated for COVID-19, and for partially vaccinated for COVID-19.”
