# contusion vs sprain/strain



## miss407 (Dec 16, 2008)

If a patient has a contusion of the knee (924.11) and a sprain/strain of cruciate ligament of knee (844.2) can you code both the contrusion and the strain/sprain?  Wondering because at the beginning of the Contusion heading (920 - 924) it states excludes hemarthrosis (840.0 - 848.9) and the sprain/strain is in that code category. 

Thanks,


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## jdrueppel (Dec 17, 2008)

Only the sprain/strain should be coded.  In the ICD-9 Coding Guidelines Index for Chapter 17 a. 1) states that you don't code for the superficial injury associated with more severe injury of same site (Page 13 of my 2009 AMA ICD-9).  

Julie D, CPC


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