Learn this Eating Disorder Acronym
Question: I work at a primary care practice and one of our providers documented a patient having ARFID. I can’t find this easily in the ICD-10-CM coding book. How do I report this diagnosis? The doctor also wrote that the patient doesn’t express any signs of body dysmorphia. Delaware Subscriber Answer: ARFID stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. This is a pattern of disordered eating that may result in “a persistent failure to meet appropriate nutritional and/ or energy needs through an individual’s diet” and “may be caused by difficulty digesting certain foods, avoiding food with certain textures, smell or colors, portion size, lack of appetite, or fear of repeating a bad experience with certain foods,” says AHA ICD-10-CM Coding Clinic (Volume 4, Number 4, 2017). Coding Clinic says that people experiencing ARFID don’t show “evidence of a disturbance in body perception,” nor do they “meet criteria for traditional eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.” You can report a diagnosis of ARFID with ICD-10-CM code F50.82 (Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder). Rachel Dorrell, MA, MS, CPC-A, CPPM, Development Editor, AAPC
