Otolaryngology Coding Alert
Choose Two Codes for Different Hearing Loss in Each Ear
Question: ICD-9 code 389.16 crosses over to H90.5 in ICD-10, but my physician says this is an inaccurate cross-over. The ICD-10 codes appear to overlook mixed hearing loss with SNHL on the contralateral side. An example is when the patient has mixed hearing loss in the right ear and the left ear has SNHL. ICD-10 H90.6 is for bilateral mixed. If you choose H90.40 or 41 (laterality) it specifies unrestricted hearing on the contralateral side, which is not correct in this case. How would this be coded?
Colorado Subscriber
Answer: Many coders would probably agree that ICD-10 did make it difficult to report hearing loss. This is especially true when you’re coding for different types of hearing loss in each ear. New codes to represent when the patient has restricted hearing on the contralateral side have been proposed, but we won’t see any revisions until October 2016 (if then).
In the meantime, the only way to code two different hearing losses is to use the “unspecified” hearing loss codes, one for each ear according to the type. Your choices are:
Based on this information, you would report H90.5 for the left ear and H90.8 for the right.
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