ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

New version makes sports injury ICD-9s super-specific. The ICD-9 2010 section that got the heaviest attention was the E codes, whose exponential expansion offers you much more specific codes when it comes to describing external causes of injury or poisoning. This dense E code addendum is just a product of the exciting new ways people are now able to injure themselves, says Denae M. Merrill, CPC, CEMC, HCC coding specialist at The Coding Source and owner of Merrill Medical Management in Saginaw, Mich. "New technologies, new extreme sports, new war equipment, the list goes on ... and so do the possibilities of injury, which means the E codes must try to keep up," Merrill says. Among the dozens of new E codes are: • E001.0 -- Activities involving walking, marching, and hiking • E002.7 -- Activities involving surfing, windsurfing, or boogie boarding • E007.0 -- Activities involving American tackle football • E013.0 -- Activities [...]