Cardiology Coding Alert

ICD-10-CM narrows your code options from 12 to 4 for hypertensive heart and CKD.You can expect ICD-10-CM to provide you with combination codes for certain chronic conditions just as ICD-9-CM does, but that doesn't mean the code definitions will be precisely the same.To see a practical example, review the codes below, which you assign when a patient has both hypertensive heart disease (documentation indicates hypertension causes heart disease) and hypertensive chronic kidney disease (hypertension with chronic kidney disease [CKD] even if no relationship is indicated in the documentation).ICD-9 coding rules: The terms "benign" and "malignant" feature in the ICD-9 hypertensive heart disease codes. When the physician doesn't document benign or malignant, you must choose an "unspecified" code. Additionally, you should report the heart failure type (428.x), if known, and the CKD stage (585.x) as secondary codes.The ICD-9 codes include:404.0x, Hypertensive heart and chronic kidney disease; malignant404.1x, ... benign404.9x, ... unspecified.ICD-9 fifth digit [...]