Anesthesia Coding Alert

Prepare now for 50+ new codes associated with 998.11.

When your anesthesiologist participates in a surgical case because the patient had bleeding (hemorrhage) problems, you typically include 998.11 (Hemorrhage complicating a procedure) as one of your diagnosis codes. That will change once ICD-10 goes into effect, so start thinking now about ways to review the anesthesiologist's documentation " and possibly the surgeon's -- for important details about the hemorrhage location and timing.

Here's why: Code 998.11 will expand into more than 55 new codes under ICD-10. The new codes indicate whether the hemorrhage occurred during the operative session with the descriptors noting "Intraoperative hemorrhage and hematoma of ..." or after the procedure, with the wording "Postprocedural hemorrhage and hematoma of ...."

You'll also need to know the location of the bleeding, because the ICD-10 codes designate an anatomical type of procedure that leads to the hemorrhage. For example, you might choose J95.830 (Postprocedural hemorrhage and hematoma of a respiratory system organ or structure following a respiratory system procedure) for hemorrhage associated with a lung procedure or N99.61 (Intraoperative hemorrhage and hematoma of a genitourinary system organ or structure complicating a genitourinary system procedure) for a genitourinary procedure hemorrhage.