Wiki Intermittent Claudication vs Claudication

[sujatabiswas]

Can someone help me to find the correct code for claudication? Do we need "Intermittent" word to code I73.9? My auditor is saying we cant code claudication as I73.9 without the intermittent word. Please let me know if you would code I73.9 if it didnt have Intermittent. Please explain with rationale. Thanks in advance.

 

[thomas7331]

Your auditor is mistaken here. If you look up the term 'claudication' in the alphabetic index, the term 'intermittent' appears in parentheses. As per the ICD-10 guidelines, section 1.A.7: "Parentheses are used in both the Alphabetic Index and Tabular List to enclose supplementary words that may be present or absent in the statement of a disease or procedure without affecting the code number to which it is assigned." So 'intermittent' does not have to be present in order to assign this code. 'Claudication', without further specificity, would be correctly reported with I73.9.

Always look to your official guidelines first - you will find that the guidelines will address most questions about how to arrive at the correct ICD-10 code assignment.

 

[sujatabiswas]

Your auditor is mistaken here. If you look up the term 'claudication' in the alphabetic index, the term 'intermittent' appears in parentheses. As per the ICD-10 guidelines, section 1.A.7: "Parentheses are used in both the Alphabetic Index and Tabular List to enclose supplementary words that may be present or absent in the statement of a disease or procedure without affecting the code number to which it is assigned." So 'intermittent' does not have to be present in order to assign this code. 'Claudication', without further specificity, would be correctly reported with I73.9.

Always look to your official guidelines first - you will find that the guidelines will address most questions about how to arrive at the correct ICD-10 code assignment.

Thank you so much.