Wiki Dysphagia

gobrnco

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I have two questions on how to properly code Dysphagia.
1. If a provider documents different phases of Dysphagia, do you code all the phases separately? For example, if provider documents both oral Dysphagia and pharyngeal Dysphagia, would you code two separate codes?? Or do you apply Oropharyngeal Dysphagia code? I can not find an answer that explains why etc.
2. What would you code for Odynophagia (pain with swallowing)? Some people think Dysphagia but some say you can not.
If anyone could clarify these for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Pointing me to any references would also be of great help!
 
1. According to the AHA Coding clinic, in 4Q2007, these two codes were developed to identify the distinct phases of dysphagia. The clinic goes on to explain that these are different issues, so the separate codes should be reported individually. Although this was pre-ICD-10, the separate codes (and phases) still exist, so you would report the dysphagia based on the specific area (oral, pharangeal, oropharangea)--whatever he documents.
2. I ran this through my encoder....difficulty swallowing, otherwise specified (i.e. pain) codes to R13.19, Other dysphagia. Pain in throat or pharynx codes out to pharyngitis, which is inappropriate, so I would go with other dysphagia.

Good questions!
 
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