At the onset of the pandemic, increasing use of three codes — 31500 for emergency intubations, 99291 for intensive care unit treatment and 99233 for complex hospital visits — reflected rising numbers of COVID-19 patients, according to Tony Mira, president and CEO of Anesthesia Business Consultants.
ABC coding teams have captured a wide range of diagnoses used for COVID-19 patients and “COVID-like” patients whose virus status isn’t definitively known, Mr. Mira said.
Nineteen diagnoses used for COVID-19 patients, in order of frequency for clients in ABC’s database:
- U07.1: COVID-19
- R06.03: Acute respiratory distress
- J96.90: Respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
- J96.00: Acute respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
- I46.9: Cardiac arrest, cause unspecified
- J96.01: Acute respiratory failure with hypoxia
- J98.8: Other specified respiratory disorders
- J98.9: Respiratory disorder, unspecified
- J96.91: Respiratory failure, unspecified with hypoxia
- R09.02: Hypoxemia
- B97.29: Other coronavirus as the cause of diseases classified elsewhere
- J95.859: Other complication of respirator (ventilator)
- R09.2: Respiratory arrest
- Z20.828: Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral communicable diseases
- R06.89: Other abnormalities of breathing
- J18.9: Pneumonia, unspecified organism
- J96.10: Chronic respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
- I50.9: Heart failure, unspecified
- R06.00: Dyspnea, unspecified
For More Information: https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-coding-billing-and-collections/19-codes-used-for-covid-19-patients.html