Wiki suspected Crohn's disease

[anknight77]

How are you all coding diagnosis of "suspected Crohn's"? Because there is no specific diagnosis listed for this in the ICD-9 book, I believe we need to be coding just the signs/symptoms, but our doctors have been using 555.9 (regional enteritis, unspecified). I take the description of this code to mean that they HAVE Crohn's but the site is not specified. Please help! Thanks in advance!

 

[williafm]

I agree with you- in the absence of known findings/disease code the signs and symptoms

 

[coachlang3]

You have to code the signs and symptoms as there is no such thing as "suspected crohns". You cannot code "rule out" and "suspected".