Cardiology Coding Alert

Steer clear of an all too common CHF mistake.Millions of people in the U.S. have heart failure, requiring billions of dollars in medical care each year, according to the CDC. That adds up to a lot of patient encounters that require spot-on coding and a keen understanding of how terms like congestive, acute, and chronic affect your code choice.First Focus on Congestive Heart FailureYou'll find codes for heart failure in the 428.x (Heart failure) range. The first code in the range applies when your patient has a diagnosis of congestive heart failure (CHF) unspecified: 428.0 (Congestive heart failure, unspecified), says Joan L. Usher, BS, RHIA, COS-C, ACE, president, of JLU Health Record Systems in Pembroke, Mass. This code is also appropriate for a diagnosis of congestive heart disease or right heart failure, including when the physician documents right heart failure secondary to left heart failure. Definition: Patients with CHF have [...]