Wiki Dx coding

[slimmagnum]

I am new to coding- about 7 months now and was told by a previous employee that I was to list icd9 codes in ascending order when billing commercial carriers. I have since been told to list most serious diagnosis first. Does it matter? Thanks!

 

[mitchellde]

Yes it matters in some cases. You need to look in your guidelines and at the coding conventions. Some codes are only allowed to be first, some are only allowed to be second, some must be paired in a certain order. Generally you do use as first listed the DX that represents the majority of the resources expended during the encounter.