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Wiki Cellulitis

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Please confirm. Can a provider assign diagnosis code from the cellulitis codes 681.0-682.9 without providing the additional code to identify the organism? How would a provider diagnosis what they feel is cellulitis on looking at the particular area of the skin?
 
Yes, the physician can report cellulitis without knowing the organism. Often, at the time of reporting the organism isn't known.

They can report cellulitis based on their clinical opinion of the patients signs and symptoms.

Hope that helps!
 
balamurugan.ph said:
I think no because 681.0 to 682.9 we have Notes: use additional code to identify organism (like 041.1)
Click to expand...

If you go to infection/skin/cellulitis, it directs you to see cellulitis, by site

You can find further informat regarding the term "use additional code" in section I, conventions, general coding guidelines and chapter specific guidelines in your ICD 9 book. It will then direct you to "multiple coding for a single condition". Under which it states that these notes are found in the tabular at codes that are not part of an etilogy/mainfestation pair where a secondary code is useful to fully describe a condtion.

It does not state it is required to report the primary code.

Hope that helps, happy coding!
 
rvalente said:
If you go to infection/skin/cellulitis, it directs you to see cellulitis, by site

You can find further informat regarding the term "use additional code" in section I, conventions, general coding guidelines and chapter specific guidelines in your ICD 9 book. It will then direct you to "multiple coding for a single condition". Under which it states that these notes are found in the tabular at codes that are not part of an etilogy/mainfestation pair where a secondary code is useful to fully describe a condtion.

It does not state it is required to report the primary code.

Hope that helps, happy coding!
Click to expand...

Thanks for your clarification..:)
 
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