# Identified risk factors



## Lynda Wetter (Jun 28, 2012)

How would "identified rick factors be defined? Is it something you can pull from the medical history portion? Or does/should it be seperately dictated as a risk in the assesment and plan?


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## FTessaBartels (Jul 5, 2012)

*Co-morbidities*

I teach physicians to specifically document any co-morbidities that are concerning for additional risk for any planned procedure.

As I tell the physicians, I am not a doctor and cannot assume that a patient's history presents an additional risk to the patient during a planned procedure. 

Hope that helps.

F Tessa Bartels, CPC, CEMC


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## Lynda Wetter (Jul 5, 2012)

It does help because that is what I was thiniking "I'm not a doctor so how am I supose to know if condition xx is a risk factor for the procedure their about to have" 
So is it safe to say that in the table of risk I should go with *minor surgery with no identified risk factors (low), if in the assesment and plan the patient okays to have the procedure done and the info listed is "a former smoker" or "Hypertension" 
Which leads to another question, can you take risk factors form the PFSH? Or is that double dipping? Hope this makes sense...

Thanks, 
Lynda  Wetter CPC, (studying for CEMC)


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