Australia’s hospital classification has a new edition on the way, and the timetable is now public. In its Work Program 2026-27, published on 21 July 2026, the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) confirmed that work on ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS Fourteenth Edition and AR-DRG Version 13.0 begins this financial year. Completion is intended by June 2028, with the Fourteenth Edition used for separations from 1 July 2028.

If you are starting out in clinical coding, that date matters more than it might look. Someone who enrols in a coding diploma this spring will train on the current Thirteenth Edition, start work on it, and then see the Fourteenth arrive within their first few years on the job. Knowing how an edition is built, what changes when one lands, and how to keep up is part of the trade.

Australian hospitals code every admitted patient episode using three linked products. ICD-10-AM classifies diagnoses, ACHI classifies procedures and interventions, and the Australian Coding Standards (ACS) govern how the first two are applied. Together they are known as ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS, and IHACPA refines them on a three-year cycle.

The work program sets out the current cycle plainly:

• Thirteenth Edition is the edition in use, applicable for separations from 1 July 2025.
• Fourteenth Edition development commences in 2026-27, with completion intended by June 2028 and implementation from 1 July 2028.
• AR-DRG Version 12.0, the grouper that turns coded episodes into funding classes, was released in July 2025 and prices admitted acute care from 1 July 2026 under the National Efficient Price Determination 2026-27.
• AR-DRG Version 13.0 is intended for release in July 2028 and implementation from 1 July 2029.

Notice the two calendars running a year apart. Coders move to a new edition in July of one year. The AR-DRG version built on that edition is released at the same time, but hospitals are not priced on it until the following July. That year gives hospitals, states and territories and software vendors time to implement the new version, and gives IHACPA time to calibrate the price weights. Hospital cost data reaches the pricing model roughly two years after the coding is done, so the coding a coder does in 2028-29 shapes funding for several years afterwards.

IHACPA has not published a Fourteenth Edition timetable beyond those dates, but the Thirteenth Edition cycle shows what the process looks like.

The priorities come from working coders and clinicians. For the Thirteenth Edition, IHACPA drafted development work programs in November 2022, built from issues held over from earlier editions, public submissions, and feedback on its annual pricing framework consultation. Anyone can lodge a submission through the Australian Classification Exchange (ACE), IHACPA’s public portal for classification change requests. A total of 67 public submissions were reviewed for the Thirteenth Edition, each listed with its outcome in the published Summary of Updates.

Clinicians check the clinical content. The Classifications Clinical Advisory Group advises on development proposals, with members drawn from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, the Australian College of Nursing, Allied Health Professions Australia and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Proposed changes are also assessed against ICD-11 and other countries’ modifications of ICD-10.

The public sees the major changes before they are final. IHACPA released a consultation paper on the proposed major changes for the Thirteenth Edition and AR-DRG Version 12.0 on 2 November 2023, with submissions closing on 1 December 2023. Sixteen submissions came in, from state health departments, individual hospitals and clinical colleges. That was about 20 months before the edition took effect.

Then the materials roll out. Thirteenth Edition material was released in stages from April 2025: the books, electronic code lists, mapping tables, a Reference to Changes document, and the Chronicle, which traces changes to ICD-10-AM codes, ACHI codes and the standards across every edition. Education followed, so coders could learn the changes before 1 July. If the Fourteenth Edition follows the same shape, working coders can expect a consultation paper on the major changes some time in the second half of 2027, then a staged release of materials in the first half of 2028. Those are inferences from the last cycle, not announced dates.

An edition change sounds sweeping. IHACPA’s published figures for the Thirteenth Edition show what one really involves.

Read the proportions.

Fewer than one per cent of the diagnosis codes were new. Procedure codes moved more, largely because ACHI absorbs Medicare Benefits Schedule updates (July 2020 to March 2023 in that edition) and a new Australian Schedule of Dental Services. Standards saw the biggest clean-out, with 23 retired.

One of the most significant changes in the Thirteenth Edition was structural rather than a list of new codes. Cluster coding, supported by the new ACS 0004 Diagnosis cluster identifier, lets related diagnosis codes be linked as a group. It arrived in a first stage covering external cause clusters and chronic condition supplementary codes, and it prepares Australian data for a potential future implementation of ICD-11, where clustering is a feature.

So a coder moving from one edition to the next carries almost the whole classification with them. What they relearn is the delta, using the Reference to Changes, the Chronicle and the edition education, plus a fresh eye for the standards that were retired or rewritten.

An edition applies according to the date the patient separated from hospital, not the date they were admitted. Twelfth Edition covered separations from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2025, and the Thirteenth applies to separations from 1 July 2025. A patient admitted in late June 2025 who went home in July was coded to the Thirteenth Edition.

On 1 July 2028 the same rule will apply. Either side of a changeover, a coder can be finishing older episodes on one edition while coding new separations on the next, which is why the education and the Reference to Changes matter so much beforehand.

A classification that is rebuilt every three years, with quarterly National Coding Advice in between, rewards a particular kind of worker. Coders who do well treat the classification as something that moves, and know where to look when it does.

That means three habits from day one. Learn the current edition properly, because everything the Fourteenth changes will be described in relation to it. Get comfortable reading IHACPA’s own documents rather than second-hand summaries. And follow the development cycle as it unfolds, because the consultation paper on the Fourteenth Edition will be the first public look at the classification you will work on for the three years after that.

Behind this cycle sits a bigger question. Australia has not yet decided whether or when to replace ICD-10-AM with ICD-11. A business case is being prepared by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for governments in late 2026, and IHACPA’s work program includes further ICD-11 validation work. Whatever governments decide, the Fourteenth Edition is being built, and ICD-10-AM remains the classification Australian coders will be using for years yet.

Becoming a clinical coder does not require a clinical background. It requires attention to detail, comfort with structured reference material, and a willingness to keep learning. Once qualified, the Clinical Coders’ Society of Australia (CCSA) offers professional development and a community of practice for staying current through cycles like this one.

Sources: Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA), IHACPA Work Program 2026-27 (21 July 2026); IHACPA, Summary of Updates for ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS Thirteenth Edition (2025); IHACPA, Development of ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS Thirteenth Edition and AR-DRG Version 12.0, Consultation Paper (November 2023); IHACPA ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS classification pages; Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, ICD-11 in Australia.

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