Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
What’s the ICD-9 code for bat-shit crazy?
To communicate with insurance companies and the Feds, we docs use something called the ICD-9, the International Classification of Diseases 9th Revision. There’s a numerical code for everything. Lardaceous (277.3), that’s one of my favorite oddballs. Pink puffer (492.8), a synonym for emphysema, that’s another. We have nearly twelve pages of codes for neoplasms, and seven for different syndromes (blue diaper syndrome: 270.0).
But nothing for bat-shit crazy.
First, I looked under bat-shit. There’s bat ear (744.29) but no bat-shit. Surely, I thought, crazy must have an entry. Hell, there’s an entry for farts (gas, excessive: 787.3), so why not ‘crazy’? But no, the closest thing alphabetically is craw-craw (125.3 — skin inflammation by a filarial nematode).
Insanity, delusional (298.9) comes close but fails to capture the pure terror experienced by the physician and all around him, misses entirely the overwhelming desire to bug-bomb the office and take a long, hot bath in bleach.
I would diagnose myself with frustration, but there’s no code for that, either. The closest thing we have is frotteurism (302.89). Guess I’ll have to settle for irritability (nervous), 799.2.
More later, fiends, muse willing.
D.
frotteur. Now that’s a good word to drop into a conversation. See if anyone knows what it means. Sounds like some kind of french cheese expert.
You might have been looking under the wrong term.
Try ‘bugfuck crazy’, or perhaps ‘bedbug, crazy as a’.
Kate: How’s this. “I met my husband-to-be in the produce section of our local supermarket. I thought he was offering me a carrot, that roguish frotteur!”
Dean: I suspect ‘bugfuck crazy’ would only appear in the Canadian ICD-9 😉
DSM-4, Canadian edition, eh.
995.00 – Bugfuck crazy, NOS.
995.10 – …as a Betsy Bug
995.20 – …as a bed bug
995.20 – …as a June bug
it goes on… Which bug do you feel crazy as, and I’ll look it up.
There is, however a code for “malingerer,” which I unsuccessfully campaigned to have my pshrink put on my receipts, once.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure there were protests by the Bats’ Liberation Front, which explains the omission.