Tuesday, September 13, 2011

ICD-10 Codes: Be Selective while Reporting G89 Category Codes

When ICD-10 goes into effect in a couple of years' time, you need to learn to apply G89 category as it is the key to getting your pain diagnoses right.

Important ICD-10 coding tip: You should be selective in reporting the codes from the G89 category codes. If the definitive diagnosis is established, these codes are never assigned. The only exception happens to be when the reason for the encounter is pain control and not the management of the underlying condition.

You need to combine G89 with site-specific pain codes

You can report the G89 category code along with codes that identify the site of pain; the two codes can be sequenced as per the circumstances.

One-to-one match for several pain codes

The soon to go into effect coding system has a one-to-one match for various pain codes in the current code set. Here are the choices you will have post October 1, 2013.

ICD-9's 338.18 corresponds to G89.18 in ICD-10. Likewise, 338.28 corresponds to G89.28 in ICD-10. In these pairs, there's a change from 'postoperative' to 'postprocedure'. G89.18 covers both postoperative pain NOS as well as postprocedural pain NOS. The inclusion of postprocedure pain acknowledges those circumstances where a procedure, say for instance lumbar puncture or other percutaneous treatment leads to acute or chronic pain.

You should include psychological factors

We know pain is an emotional experience. As such there may be an accompanying psychological component which you should not miss out on. F45.42 which corresponds to 307.89 in ICD-9 is ICD-10 code for the psychological factors. See to it that you have supporting documents for the psychological factors. you have Excludes 1 and Excludes 2 information under G89 and the bottom of the Excludes 2 information urges you to report F45.42 for psychological factors. If you make use of the index and take a look under pain, you'll find psychogenic pain that'll guide you to the code.

Note: You should also use the index and then check the tabular for the right code.

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