Coding

“You are too cynical,” I read the story L showed me (which I put up on my blog in the past two days) and smiled.

“Maybe, but there’s certain truth in it,” my friend appeared serious, “The point is, why do we need to provide such an elaborated data for the diagnosis code for the hospital computer system?”

“That’s silly. We can better treat our patient when we have accurate and detailed information,” I replied.

“Can we? No, that’s not my question. What I really want to ask is: If the diagnosis code is in such a great detail, isn’t it another case summary?” L said.

“Your point doesn’t affect my argument. With more information, we can do our job better.” I insisted.

“Not necessarily, my friend. Since you are so fond of economy, I suppose you know the principles of diminishing marginal return and opportunistic cost? The more the detail, the smaller the benefit you gain by having another additional point – take aside the real happenings of garbage-in-and-garbage-out. And you lose the time that could be better spent on your patient.”

“What you mean is, as Albert Einstein said, things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” I said quietly.