Question

regarding conditions that are not an integral part of a disease process.

What does this mean to you? Give a coding example of when you wouldn't use a symptom.

For example: Patient comes into the office complaining of sore throat, the diagnosis of strep throat (pharyngitis) is made. In this scenario, only the strep pharyngitis J02.2 is coded as a sore throat is integral to the diagnosis.

Answer 1

Signs and symptoms that are associated with a disease process should not be assigned as additional codes (unless otherwise instructed byICD-9-CM) because they are included in the disease process .

EXAMPLE:

The patient is seen at the hospital's
emergency department (ED) with acomplaint ofshortness of breath. A chest x-ray reveals pneumonia, and the ED
physician prescribes an antibiotic.Assign ICD-9-CMcode 486 to the pneumonia, and do not assign a code for the shortness of breath because it is a symptom of pneumonia.