AHRQ’s POA-exempt lists differ for every fiscal ICD version examined (ICDVER 33–43, approximately FY2016–FY2026).
A clear status change is Z515:
- V33: exempt
- V34–V38: not exempt
- V39–V43: exempt again
Most other differences reflect code-set revisions rather than policy reversals—for example, a parent code is removed and replaced by more-specific child codes. Among currently mapped Elixhauser codes, 32 show list variation, primarily
patterns such as:
- I6931 removed when I69310–I69319 were introduced.
- Q238 replaced by Q2381, Q2382, and Q2388.
- Z9115 replaced by more-specific codes.
Therefore, medicalcoder’s unioned poaexempt flag is not semantically identical to AHRQ’s fiscal-version-specific lookup. The practical effect may be limited for annual methods because code mappings also change, but it can affect
continuously valid codes and the cross-version elixhauser_ahrq_icd10 method. AHRQ explicitly selects exemptions by ICDVER in its data-raw/elixhauser/ahrq/CMR_Mapping_Program_v2026-1.sas:248, while medicalcoder collapses them into one union
in data-raw/elixhauser/elixhauser_ahrq_icd10.R:195.
AHRQ’s POA-exempt lists differ for every fiscal ICD version examined (ICDVER 33–43, approximately FY2016–FY2026).
A clear status change is Z515:
Most other differences reflect code-set revisions rather than policy reversals—for example, a parent code is removed and replaced by more-specific child codes. Among currently mapped Elixhauser codes, 32 show list variation, primarily
patterns such as:
Therefore, medicalcoder’s unioned poaexempt flag is not semantically identical to AHRQ’s fiscal-version-specific lookup. The practical effect may be limited for annual methods because code mappings also change, but it can affect
continuously valid codes and the cross-version elixhauser_ahrq_icd10 method. AHRQ explicitly selects exemptions by ICDVER in its data-raw/elixhauser/ahrq/CMR_Mapping_Program_v2026-1.sas:248, while medicalcoder collapses them into one union
in data-raw/elixhauser/elixhauser_ahrq_icd10.R:195.