Human trafficking occurs in every community. Over the last 10 years, more than 40,000 cases of human trafficking have been reported in the U.S. including the District of Columbia and U.S. territories (the national Human Trafficking Hotline has more statistics).

While more and more providers are trained to identify and document victims of forced labor or sexual exploitation, the existing ICD-10-CM abuse codes fell short of differentiating victims of human trafficking from other victims of abuse. Without proper codes, there was no way for clinicians to adequately classify a diagnosis and to plan for the resources necessary to provide appropriate treatment. This also prevented critical tracking of the incidence and/or reoccurrence of labor or sexual exploitation of individuals.

Starting Oct. 1, 29 unique ICD-10-CM codes are available for data collection on adult or child forced labor or sexual exploitation, either confirmed or suspected. New codes may be assigned in addition to other existing ICD-10-CM codes for abuse, neglect and other maltreatment. 

In addition, new codes are also available for past history of labor or sexual exploitation, encounter for examination and observation of exploitation ruled out, and an external cause code to identify multiple, repeated, perpetrators of maltreatment and neglect.

Learn more here about the codes and how your team can begin using them.

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