[The French Common Classification of Procedures CCAM. An option for Germany]

A working group of the National Board for Classification in Health Care at the Federal Ministry for Health (KKG) concerned itself between 1996 and 2003 with the topic of a possible follow-up procedure classification system for the actually used "Operation and Procedure Coding System" (OPS-301), which was introduced to Germany in the mid 1990's. In the context of a feasibility study the American "Procedure Coding system" (PCS) and the French "Classification commune des actes médicaux "(CCAM) were examined and evaluated as possible follow-up classifications. In this study it could be shown that the CCAM has great advantages over the pure multiaxial PCS. The strength for that is its medical content, its construction, the methods used and in particular the usability by physicians, the ease of statistic evaluations and the support to maintain the CCAM. In this article the CCAM is presented in detail with its basic principles and its classification methods together with some of the most important coding rules. It is discussed whether the CCAM can be a follow-up classifications system for the German OPS as it is, or if it would make more sense to reconstruct the existing medical content of the OPS with the architecture and methodology of the CCAM.