Revenue Cycle Insider

Question: If a patient reports to the emergency department (ED) with a foreign body (FB) in their left eye, what is the proper ICD-10-CM code for the injury?

Arkansas Subscriber

Answer: It depends on the location of the FB within the eye. ICD-10-CM includes FB diagnosis codes for several eye areas.

Do this: Go back and check the notes to see where in the eye the FB is located. Then, choose one of these left-sided codes as a diagnosis:

• T15.02XA (Foreign body in cornea, left eye, initial encounter)
• T15.12XA (Foreign body in conjunctival sac, left eye, initial encounter)
• T15.82XA (Foreign body in other and multiple parts of external eye, left eye, initial encounter)
• T15.92XA (Foreign body on external eye, part unspecified, left eye, initial encounter).

Chris Boucher, MS, CPC, Senior Development Editor, AAPC