Q&A: Acute respiratory failure diagnosis does not require intubation

May 22, 2012

QUESTION: Our pulmonologists are not comfortable documenting acute respiratory failure unless the patient is on a ventilator. Also, they rarely document chronic respiratory failure, even in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients on continuous home oxygen. I’m trying to develop standard query forms for acute and chronic respiratory failure and am running into these obstacles. How do you recommend handling this problem?

This is an excerpt from a member only article.
To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to JustCoding News: Inpatient.