Home Health ICD-9/ICD-10 Alert

Reader Questions:

Don't Overcode For Wound Care

Question: We are providing wound care and IV antibiotic administration for a post-operative abdominal wound infection due to Staph aureus. How should I code?

-- Vermont Subscriber

Answer: For this patient, list:

998.59 (Other postoperative infection);

041.11 (Staphylococcus aureus); and

V58.81 (Fitting and adjustment of vascular catheter).

Don't report a surgical dressing V code for this wound because it's a complicated wound.

If the Staph aureus is methicillin-resistant, follow the 041.11 code with V09.0 (Infection with microorganisms resistant to penicillins).

Unless otherwise indicated, reader questions were answered by Lisa Selman-Holman, JD, BSN, RN, HCS-D, COS-C, consultant and principal of Selman-Holman & Associates in Denton, TX.

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