[mr_toad]

I’m sure it’s crossed the mind of many people in the industry. But it’s a comprehensive taxonomy of all diseases, medical conditions, causes, procedures and treatments. Starting from scratch would be much more expensive than just paying the licensing.

[sowbug]

Here in California, Senate Bill 478 bans many junk fees, such as the mandatory "service fee" to buy a concert ticket. It's a stretch, but I could see an argument that if hospitals use a billing system that's incomprehensible without licensing an expensive codex, then the hospital is on the hook to provide the codex to you.

Fight fire with fire.

[onionisafruit]

What I mean is using it without paying the license, because if GP is accurate there is no copyright preventing it.

[mr_toad]

In that case its probably cheaper for most organisations just to pay the license fees than risk paying legal fees which would probably be more, even if they won.