How frequently are ICD-10 codes updated?

ICD-10 medical codes are updated annually, according to the World Health Organization. Each October, the WHO Collaborating Centres for the Family of International Classifications approves that year's updates, which are available for download at the WHO website.

While the WHO's International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, or ICD-10, was established internationally in 1996 and implemented for classification of mortality in the United States in 1999, the United States continued to use ICD-9 for clinical diagnoses and procedures, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention points out. While ICD-10-CM for diagnoses and ICD-10-PCS for inpatient procedures were scheduled to replace ICD-9 in the United States on Oct. 1, 2014, that date was pushed back, and the changeover is scheduled for Oct. 1, 2015, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.