Q: Our facility has been seeing more denials lately for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), especially when both respiratory failure and ARDS are documented in the same record. How should ARDS be reported in ICD-10-CM, and which MS-DRG does this diagnosis group to?
Q: Our coding team has been having trouble reporting post-operative complications due to vague physician documentation. What language might you suggest that physicians use to clarify that the complication is indeed due to surgery?
Q: We have a patient admitted for heart failure who is also being treated for latent autoimmune diabetes of adulthood (LADA). What is LADA and how would it be reported in ICD-10-CM?
Q: We recently had a patient admitted with severe acute meningitis causing respiratory decompensation. A diagnostic lumbar puncture and mechanical ventilation were both performed during the inpatient stay. Which of these two procedures would be the principal procedure?
Q: Would telemetry and the continuation of home medications be considered continued care for a myocardial infarction (MI) or treatment when reporting in ICD-10-CM? Would this meet the definition of a secondary diagnosis?
Q: Per Coding Clinic, Second Quarter 2017, when a spinal fusion is performed without bone grafting it cannot be coded to the root operation Fusion in ICD-10-PCS. Is this advice still accurate?
Q: I’m having trouble determining how to report an acute myocardial infarction (MI) for subsequent admissions occurring within four weeks of the initial MI in ICD-10-CM. Can you walk me through the process?
Q: We have a patient admitted for COVID-19 who is now showing signs of cytokine release syndrome (CRS). Can you give our team more information on symptoms or clinical indicators for CRS as well as any ICD-10-CM coding advice?
Q: We had a patient admitted with a negative COVID-19 test, but after being retested the patient had a positive COVID-19 result. Should we query the provider whether COVID-19 was POA?
Q: We are confused about which body part value in ICD-10-PCS should be captured for an incision and drainage (I&D) of a perianal abscess of the left buttocks because the physician documented both “perianal” and “left buttocks.”
Q: When two conditions are both present on admission, both meet definition to be the principal diagnosis (PDX), and are “equally treated,” my understanding is that the condition does not have to be "equally treated" in the sense of duration/frequency. Can you provide the actual verbiage of the coding rule and explain?
