# DX code from EKG interpretation



## saj402 (Oct 4, 2013)

I am auditing some ED records and struggling if this is appropriate or not.  Patients that come in with chest pain and the provider orders an EKG.  There is a signed machine-generated EKG tracing in the record.  It is appropriate to assign the diagnosis, such as Incomplete RBBB or abnormal ECG, from the machine-generated report?  The provider's final diagnosis might only be "Chest pain".  thanks.


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## devinmajor14 (Oct 9, 2013)

From my experience... I would only code the Dr's final dx.


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## Anitha Lingala (Oct 14, 2013)

Yes, code for the chest pain only.


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## CactusCoder (Oct 20, 2013)

saj402 said:


> I am auditing some ED records and struggling if this is appropriate or not.  Patients that come in with chest pain and the provider orders an EKG.  There is a signed machine-generated EKG tracing in the record.  It is appropriate to assign the diagnosis, such as Incomplete RBBB or abnormal ECG, from the machine-generated report?  The provider's final diagnosis might only be "Chest pain".  thanks.



In my experience, you can assign a dx from the provider's interpretation. That is, the provider wrote "RBBB". You cannot assign RBBB from your own interpretation of the waveforms.

However, I would think chest pain would be a sufficient dx to support an EKG for any payer.


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