Last month I photographed Dr. Pardeep Kumar, an internist in Terre Haute, Ind., for a story in The New York Times about a new medical coding system that went into effect on Oct. 1. The new system, ICD-10, is causing health care providers anxiety because it will change the fundamental way they describe illnesses and injuries in their computer systems. As Dr. Michael R. Marks, a Connecticut orthopedic surgeon, describes it in the story: “On Oct. 1, we will be speaking a new language. It’s like switching to German, after speaking English for 30 years.”
