Citation

Macias-Konstantopoulos WL. AMA J. Ethics 2018; 20(12): E1143-E1151.

Affiliation

A faculty member in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, where she is also co-founding director of the Human Trafficking Initiative and founding medical and executive director of the MGH Freedom Clinic, an innovative primary care clinic that provides comprehensive health care for human trafficking survivors; and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School and has served as a subject matter expert for the US Department of Health and Human Services, conducted research, provided media interviews, published, and lectured widely on the topic of health and human trafficking.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/amajethics.2018.1143

PMID

30585577

Abstract

The International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) is the system used by clinicians and medical coders to document diseases, symptoms, social circumstances, and external causes of illness and injury. ICD-10-CM codes for various forms of abuse and violence perpetrated against children and adults exist and facilitate the study of incidence, social context, and comorbid illness and injury. Extant abuse codes, however, fail to capture the profoundly exploitative nature of trafficking and adequately distinguish trafficking patients from other types of abuse patients. As a result, the first trafficking-specific codes have been approved for the 2019 ICD-10-CM update and are expected to strengthen data collection on incidence of and risk factors for trafficking, the burden of comorbid illness and injury, and resources needed to effectively care for trafficked persons.

© 2018 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.

Language: en