Primary Care Coding Alert

Start at 940.x and work your way up on burn ICD-9s. When your FP performs burn treatment for a patient, you need to be ready to select code(s) from the 940.x-949.x ICD-9 group. Knowing which, and how many, of these codes to report will make the difference on your burn treatment claims. Step 1: Select Anatomic Burn Dx When coding for burns, first check if the FP included the location of the burn in the notes, advises Jeffrey F.Linzer Sr., MD, MICP, FAAP, FACEP, associate medical director of compliance and business affairs for the division of pediatric emergency medicine, Department of Pediatrics, at Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. If you can discern the burn location, report a code from the 940.x-947.x code set. This code represents the anatomic location and the degree/thickness of the burn, explains Cecilia Forde,CPC, CPC-H, coding specialist for Floridas Centra Care. Example: Notes indicate that [...]