General Surgery Coding Alert

Prepare your surgeons to add op-note detail.

Whether the patient’s colon diverticulitis involves bleeding may be the only detail your general surgeons need to currently report in the op note, but that won’t be true when ICD-10 goes into effect on October 1.

Here’s why: ICD-9 has just two codes for colon diverticulitis, as follows:

• 562.11 — Diverticulitis of colon (without mention of hemorrhage)

• 562.13 — ... with hemorrhage

But ICD-10 provides at least the following four choices for the same condition:

• K57.20 — Diverticulitis of large intestine with perforation and abscess without bleeding

• K57.21 — ... with perforation and abscess with bleeding

• K57.32 — ... without perforation or abscess without bleeding

• K57.33 — ... without perforation or abscess with bleeding.

ICD-10 also provides similar codes for diverticulitis of small and large intestine combined. In all cases, you’ll need additional detail from your surgeons’ op reports if you want to accurately code diverticulitis using ICD-10. Even the “unspecified” diverticulitis codes distinguish between with/without perforation and abscess, leaving only the site unspecified (such as K57.80, Diverticulitis of intestine, part unspecified, with perforation and abscess without bleeding)