Wiki Discharge diagnosis

[tobeornottobeacoder]

I am not familiar with hospital billing at all and this will be a stupid question. If a patient is being discharged from an inpatient stay and all the issues on what they were admitted for have been resolved, what do you put for a dx on the discharge?? Are the dx still the same as the admitting dx because there is a potential that problems will come back??? I have looked in the guidelines in my ICD9 and all I can find is outpatient. Can someone help me and tell me where I can find this information????

 

[pezztx]

You can have different diagnoses for admission and discharge. Say a person gets admitted for SOB, Chest Pain and Cough. During their stay testing confirms Pneumonia. Whatever they end up being treated for is what you should use as the DX. Just an example. HTH

 

[semillhouse]

http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/public/documents/ahima/bok2_000466.hcsp?dDocName=bok2_000466

I found this article when I was starting out and it helped answer a lot of questions I had. Hope it helps!

 

[tobeornottobeacoder]

Thanks so much for your help.

 

[semillhouse]

No problem!