Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

You have a one-to-one correlation, but you do have a descriptor change.

“Anxiety” is a general term for avoidance-prone disorders. This includes feelings of dread with apparent object or cause. Symptoms include irritability, anxious expectations, or phobias.

Currently, you would report this with 300.00 (Anxiety state unspecified). In ICD-10, you’ll use F41.9 (Anxiety disorder, unspecified).

ICD-10-CM Change:This is another direct one-to-one correlation between your ICD-9 code (300.00) and the new code (F41.9). Instead of an anxiety “state,” this is termed a “disorder.”

Documentation: You’ll land on F41.9 in your Alphabetic Index in the following ways:

• Anxiety F41.9
• Apprehensiveness, abnormal F41.9
• Disorder (of) - see also Disease >> anxiety F41.9

Therefore, provider documentation might vary from “anxiety” to “abnormal apprehensiveness” to “anxiety disorder.”

Coding tips: When you’re looking at “Anxiety” in the Alphabetic Index, you’ll see other terms underneath this one. These include depression, episodic paroxysmal, generalized, neurosis, panic type, reaction, abnormal separate (of childhood), specified NEC, and state -- all with different diagnoses. Make sure you’re choosing the correct anxiety condition.