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ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

Drill Down to These HPI Element Meanings

Published on Sun Jul 15, 2012

Check out these expert tips for deciding how to count documented HPI elementsTodd Thomas CPC, CCS-P, President of ERcoder, Inc. in Edmond, OK offers the following clarifications of what each HPI element means:Location is often an anatomic descriptor. It can be as basic as left ankle, distal radius or epigastric pain, or more descriptive such as diffuse or localized to a specific area, unilateral or bilateral. It can even be a written description of where the patient points when asked, "Where does it hurt?" Thomas suggests educating physicians about documenting specific locations for complaints that seem to include a location. Complaints like chest pain, headache and abdominal will stand up to an auditors scrutiny better with the addition of statement like "substernal" chest pain, "frontal" headache and "LLQ" abdominal pain.Quality is the characteristic of the symptom such as sharp, pounding, constant or intermittent. Acute, chronic, stable or worsening are also [...]
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