You construct a query by moving through each of the following steps.  When you are done selecting all of your options in each of the steps, click Submit at the bottom of the page.

Step One – Select a Search Type (Required)

Below are directions on the different options you have when you are selecting diagnosis or procedure codes for use in a query.

Choose a Code Type:  Choose one type of code to use in your query.  Only one code type may be selected per query.  You may choose from the following types:  ICD-9 Principal Diagnosis, ICD-9 Principal Procedure, or Diagnosis Related Group (DRG).

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Choose ‘All Hospital Discharges’:  When this option is chosen, your results will include all the hospital discharges for a facility or facilities with the appropriate demographic criteria that was selected.  If you select this option, please continue to Step 3.

Important:  Results do not include secondary procedures or diagnoses.

Step Two – Select a Key Word or Code(s)

Search by Key Word(s):  You can enter a key word or words that are part of the principal diagnosis, principal procedure or DRG description.  You may enter key words by placing a space (no commas) between each item.  Enter a key word in the text box, then click on the "Search by Key Word" button.  If matches are found, a table is displayed with all matches, along with empty boxes to the left of the item(s).  Click on the empty box(es) to place a check in them to select as many of the matches as you like.  To finish, click Continue.  This returns you to the main query page and the codes you chose are placed into the ‘Selected Code List’ box.

Note:  Searching by key word is useful if you know the name of what you are searching for, but not the code.  For example, if you select “Principal ICD-9-CM Diagnosis Code” under Select a Code Type in Step 1, then enter the word "burn" under ‘Key Words’ in the Search box for Step 2, it will return all burn-related diagnosis codes containing that key word in each code’s description.  Then click on the empty box(es) to select as many of the matches as you like.

Important Tip for ‘Search by Key Word’:  As some words are abbreviated in the code tables, your search will be more complete if you use just the first few letters of your search.  For example, to obtain procedures on catheterization, your search will increase by only typing in ‘cath’.

Search by a Code or Range of Codes:  In this box enter the exact code or range of codes you want to select.  You can enter a single code, i.e. 4280 or a range of codes, for example, type 9493 through 9495.  Do NOT use decimals.

Once you have selected a code or range of codes, you need to select ‘Search by Code(s)’.  If matches are found, a table is displayed with all matches, along with empty boxes to the left of the item(s).  Click on the empty box(es) to place a check in them to select as many of the matches as you like.  To finish, click Continue.  This returns you to the main query page and the codes you chose are placed into the ‘Selected Code List’ box.

Step Three – Select Demographic Criteria

In this section, you can pick different categories to narrow down your query.  The various options are:  Race, Sex, Principal Payer, Age Group, Admission Source, Admission Type, Patient County, Facility, and Discharge Status.  For all of the options, use the scroll box to select one item per option, or select All to include all items for that option.

• Race:  Race and/or ethnicity of the patient.
• Sex:  Biological gender of the patient.
• Principal Payer:  Principal payer of the hospital stay.
• Age Group:  Aggregated ranges of the patient’s age in years.
• Admission Source:  Source a patient can be admitted from. For example, Physician referral or Transfer from another facility.
• Admission Type:  The type of admission, e.g., Emergency or Elective.
• PatientCounty:  The county in which the patient resides. This can be different than the county of the facility.
• FacilityCounty:  The county in which the facility is located. This can differ from the county of the patient.
• Facility:  You can search all facilities (the default), by facility county, or by facility name.
• Discharge Status:  Represents the patient’s disposition upon discharge, i.e. discharged home or discharged to a skilled nursing facility.

Final Step

After selecting all options, choose from the following:

• Submit:  Runs the query you have constructed, then displays the results.
  
• Reset:  Resets all the information you previously selected so you can begin a new query.
  
• Help:  Click here for detailed instructions on creating and running a query.

After running the query the results will be displayed on your screen along with the search criteria you selected. 

Your results will contain the following information for each facility based on the criteria selected in Steps 1, 2 and 3:

• Total Hospitalizations:  Count of hospital patient discharges.
• Average (Mean) Charge:  Average of all total charges.
• Total Charges:  Sum of all total charges.
• Average (Mean) Length of Stay:  Average of all lengths of stay.
• Total Inpatient Days:  Sum of all days of stay.

Note:  You may sort your results by any column either ascending or descending.  Also, at the bottom of the Results page, you may review your search criteria as well as download the table to Microsoft Excel.