How to determine and sequence late effects and principle diagnosis

[CCO-support]

How does a coder determine and sequence late effects and principle diagnosis, in ICD-9-CM?
This is probably a very basic question, but, as a rookie coding student, it is confusing to me right now.
Thank you for your consideration!
Myra

 

[Ruth Sheets]

This topic is being considered for a topic in upcoming Q&A webinar - hopefully the next one. Meanwhile, please feel free to add your replies and comments to this thread.

 

[Ruth Sheets]

This was answered in the August 2012 Medical Coding Certification Q & A Webinar. A replay of the webinar is available. See information at https://www.cco.us/club/.

With ICD coding you generally code first the main reason they walked in the door. Sometimes with late effect codes, you can tell the story with one code. Other times, you need two. You need to pay attention to the rules in the ICD tabular because it will sometimes indicate two codes are needed by the words "also code" even though it may seem that the one code tells the whole story. Alicia gives some examples during the webinar.