General Surgery Coding Alert

Here's what you should look for in your physician's documentation.

When ICD-9 becomes ICD-10 in 2013, you'll need to get familiar with different sections in the new diagnosis code system, even if the condition you're reporting has a simple one-to-one crosswalk.

Check out these hiatal hernia diagnoses and discover what you'll report after October 1, 2013.

When your surgeon performs a hiatal hernia repair, you might need to report a diaphragm hernia or a specific congenital hiatal hernia, depending on the physician's documentation. Look to these code choices for ICD-9 and the one-toone crosswalk for ICD-10:

Coder tips: Whether ICD-9 or ICD-10, you'll need to use the "congenital" code only if your physician documents that condition.

You can use this example to start getting familiar with changes you'll need to implement in 2013. Diseases of the digestive system are in sections 520-579 for ICD-9 and in K00-K94 for ICD-10. Congenital anomalies are in sections 740-759 for ICD-9, but ICD-10 contains a much broader scope of congenital malformations, deformations, and chromosomal abnormalities in sections Q00-Q99.