Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Post ICD-10, Osteoarthritis Will Require Heightened Documentation

In 2013, as we all know, ICD-9 will become ICD-10. After this, you'll not always have a simple one-to-one relationship between old codes and the new ones. often, you will have more options that may need tweaking the way your doctor documents a service and a coder reports it.

Read on for some common osteoarthrosis diagnoses that will help you find out what you will report post October 1, 2013.

Normally a patient with osteoarthritis might start with his primary care physician, who then refers him to a rheumatologist. The rheumatologist has been tending to the patient with conservative measures such as NSAIDS (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). Owing to increasing symptoms, now poorly controlled by the use of NSAIDS, the rheumatologist requests an orthopedic consultation. He diagnoses osteoarthrosis(715.xx-716. xx) and these codes specify location, primary, or secondary.

ICD-10 difference: For these codes, you should look at the following:





  • M15 (Polyosteoarthritis)
  • M16 (Osteoarthritis of hip)
  • M17 (Osteorthritis of knee)
  • M18 (Osteoarthritis of first carpometacarpal joint)
  • M19 (Other and unspecified osteoarthritis).

    Just like ICD-9 codes, these codes are broken down into location, primary and secondary. However they also sometimes specify unilateral, bilateral and post-traumatic indications.

    Documentation: In order to submit the most detailed diagnosis, the orthopedic physician will need to maintain osteoarthrosis documentation but expand it to unilateral, bilateral, and/or post-traumatic specification. Some important terms are "oestoarthritis," "arthritis," "athrosis," "DJD," "arhtorpathy," "post traumatic arthritis," and "traumatic arthritis."

    Tips for coders: See how codes M19.01--M19.93 entail unspecified locations. Now ICD-10 code(http://www.supercoder.com/coding-newsletters/icd-10-coding-alert)
      does not group unspecified locations alongside the specific locations for each type (as in, the familiar .9 code in most ICD-9 codes categories). You'll find them at the end of the code grouping (M19.90--"M19.93) for each specific type but in an unspecified location.

    That apart, traumatic osteoarthritis is now more appropriately indexed and described as post-traumatic osteoarthritis, the true condition.
  • No comments:

    Post a Comment