Anesthesia Coding Alert

Pain management practitioners will finally be able to specify muscle and facial weakness diagnoses, thanks to new ICD-9 codes that take effect Oct. 1.
 
Now, your only choice when reporting muscle weakness as a cause of pain is the "unspecified disorder" code 728.9 (Unspecified disorder of muscle, ligament, and fascia). Soon you'll be able to report the more specific code 728.87 (Muscle weakness) instead.

 "The new code 728.87 is an improvement in terms of accuracy, but it may still be 'generalized,' " says Barbara J. Johnson, CPC, MPC, anesthesia coder with Loma Linda University Anesthesiology Medical Group in Loma Linda, Calif. "We realize that codes for specific muscle weakness wouldn't be feasible, but I would love to see 'muscle weakness' include designations for upper or lower extremity."
 
Code 728.9 is still in the 2004 ICD-9 book, though, so you'll still use it for other muscle, ligament and fascia conditions that the more specific ICD-9 codes don't describe.
 
Invalid diagnosis codes for 2004 include 719.70-719.79 (Difficulty in walking). Pain management practitioners who sometimes use these as secondary diagnoses should now code for individual signs and symptoms instead.