Wiki Injury Coding

[awarlick]

How long after an injury do you keep coding the injury dx code? I have a patient that had a skateboarding accident over a year ago and is still having pain. Would I keep coding this at the knee injury or use knee pain with a history of an injury? I could not find any guidance on how long to keep using the injury dx.

Thanks for any help.

 

[L_Silva CPC]

If it is documented, that it happened over a year ago, then I would use the history code V15.59

 

[mitchellde]

I would use the knee pain and then the code for the late effect from the injury (category 905,906,907)

 

[LTibbetts]

But for how long can you use that code? As long as the patient is having the injury-related pain?

 

[mitchellde]

you use the late effect code for however long the physician documents that the pain is due to that injury which as you know could be a liketime. There is no timelimit on late effects. I think too often the late effect is documented but the code is not picked up by the coder.