ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert
Use Secondary Dx for COPD, Bronchitis
Question: A patient presented to the ED who has chronic COPD and we diagnosed him with bronchitis. Our ED physician wants to only report J44.0 (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with acute lower respiratory infection) but the coder wants to report additional codes. Who is correct? Codify Subscriber Answer: The coder is correct in this case. When your physician documents both COPD and an episode of acute bronchitis, you should sequence J44.0 first, but you’ll need to add an additional code to identify the infection, if known. This is due to the instruction for J44.0 to “Use additional code to identify the infection.” In this case, that code comes from the J20.- (Acute bronchitis) category, and if the type of acute bronchitis is not further specified, the code is J20.9 (Acute bronchitis, unspecified).
ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert
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