Wiki is an injury code needed?

[Iam2Code]

Patient fell and hurt elbow. Provider gives a dx of left traumatic olecranon bursitis. M70.22 is the best I could find.

Now a fellow coder says that we also need to add a 'unspecified injury' since the provider said it was a traumatic injury. I would think that the M70.22 tells the whole story here (plus external cause codes). An x-ray was also done and no injury found. So why would I code an 'unspecified injury' if I already know that it's just bursitis?

Am I going nuts? Is she right?

 

[edcoding]

I agree with your code selection, M70.22 is good enough.

 

[thomas7331]

I don't think that coding M70.22 is incorrect, but it would be incomplete since it does not capture the information that the provider has indicated by stating that the bursitis is 'traumatic', i.e. that is was caused by an injury. I would include injury and fall codes to give a more complete reporting of the physician's assessment.