Cardiology Coding Alert

Acute cardiac conditions should have you considering high risk level.You could be losing E/M credit unless your emergency, elective, and risk-factor vocabulary is rock solid. Under the Table of Risk's "Management Options Selected" column, these factors can change whether the level of risk is moderate or high, affecting the encounter's type of medical decision making and potentially changing the E/M service's level.To avoid under- or over-coding the surgeon's level of risk, know the differences between:emergency major surgery (high risk) and elective major surgeryelective major surgery with no identified risk factors (moderate risk) and those with identified risk factors (high risk).Resource: If you want to review the Table of Risk, you can find one on page 14 of the 1995 E/M documentation guidelines or find one on page 50 of the 1997 E/M documentation guidelines, both of which are available at www.cms.gov/MLNEdWebGuide/25_EMDOC.asp.Emergency Surgery Requires Immediate Performance When considering emergency surgery [...]