ENGLEWOOD (CO)
Catholic Health Initiatives
July 17, 2018
Catholic Health initiatives helped spearhead an 18-month-long effort to create a diagnostic code that will allow medical professionals to identify victims of human trafficking when they arrive at facilities seeking health care.
CHI, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, collaborated with the American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence (HAV) initiative and clinicians at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Human Trafficking Initiative and Freedom Clinic to develop and secure ICD-10 codes that will allow providers to document sex and labor exploitation for the first time.
The 29 human trafficking-related codes, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on June 11, will help providers identify victims and respond appropriately to assist victims. Set to take effect in October, the codes will also provide much-needed data to understand the scope of this problem.
“Like victims of child abuse or elder abuse, victims of human trafficking are coming into emergency rooms and health care facilities on a daily basis – and we have to be ready,” said Colleen Scanlon, senior vice president and chief advocacy officer for Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives. “This is a significant step forward. Having these codes will help clinicians adequately classify a diagnosis and plan appropriate treatment.”
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