General Surgery Coding Alert

Continue to add additional microorganism code.Converting your necrotizing fasciitis coding from ICD-9 to ICD-10 shouldn't be too complicated, barring ICD-10 changes before its implementation on Oct. 1, 2013. The two diagnosis coding systems provide a one-to-one crosswalk, as follows:ICD-9: 728.86 -- Necrotizing fasciitisICD-10: M72.6 -- Necrotizing fasciitis.Even the instruction to use an additional code to identify the infectious (causative) organism aligns from ICD-9 to ICD- 10, making your job that much easier.Organism Codes VaryOnce you get to the organism codes -- that's where the ICD-9 to ICD-10 one-to-one correspondence ends. Although many codes for infectious organisms will have a direct crosswalk, like 041.01 (Bacterial infection in conditions classified elsewhere and of unspecified site, streptococcus group A) shifting to B95.0 (Streptococcus, group A, as the cause of diseases classified elsewhere), that's not the whole story. Expect to see different codes from the micro lab when your surgeon treats necrotizing fasciitis with grafting or other [...]