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Primary Care Coding Alert

Get Out of Your Head When Reading UTI, DM, HTN Note

Published on Thu Mar 12, 2009

Perceiving -due to,- -benign- could land you with incorrect dx. Be careful that your septicemia, diabetes, and hypertension savvy don't leak into your diagnostic code choice, or you could end up with an unsupported code. See if you-re inferring too much with this quick quiz. -Urosepsis- = UTI Question 1: A physician is treating a patient in the hospital and billing initial and subsequent care with documented diagnosis of "urosepsis." Should you code 038.9? Answer 1: No, said Sandy Nicholson, MA, RHIA, CCS-P, in "Establishing Medical Decision Making Level (MDM): Expert Secrets Revealed" at The Coding Institute's National Coding and Reimbursement Conference in Orlando. "038.9 (Unspecified septicemia) is not the code to use for "urosepsis." That term means a urinary tract infection (UTI). You instead have to use 599.0 for "Urosepsis." If you look this up in the ICD-9 manual, it directs you to 599.0. Action: When you see "urosepsis," [...]
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