Wiki Acute vs Chronic

[Lina]

If you have anal fissure is that is not documented as acute or chronic would it be coded as unspecified or acute. I was thinking that if it doesn't state you use acute just cant find in coding guidelines.


Thank you!

 

[thomas7331]

You would code is as unspecified if not documented as either acute or chronic.

When a term such as 'acute' or 'chronic' is not in parentheses in the index or the code descriptor, then that term is required in order to assign the code. For example, 'pharyngitis' can be coded as J02.9 - acute pharyngitis - because 'acute' is one of the terms in parentheses in the index under pharyngitis, so 'acute' does not need to be documented. That is not the case with an anal fissure diagnosis, however.