General Surgery Coding Alert
What Makes Obesity 'Morbid'?
North Carolina Subscriber
Answer: You should choose the diagnosis that best describes the patient's condition.
ICD-9 defines morbid obesity as "increased weight beyond limits of skeletal and physical requirements (125 percent or more over ideal body weight), as a result of excess fat in subcutaneous connective tissues."
If the patient meets the definition of severe or morbid obesity, you should assign 278.01 (Morbid obesity). When patients do not meet the definition for morbid obesity, you should instead list 278.00 (Obesity, unspecified).
Learn more: Beginning in October, you will also be able to access 18 new V codes to describe a patient's exact body mass index (BMI). For more information, see the related articles on pp. 59-60.
Exception: When the patient's increased weight is due to a medical condition, such as adiposogenital dystrophy (253.8) or obesity of endocrine origin (259.9), you should report the underlying condition instead of morbid obesity (this would not normally be the case for patients undergoing gastric bypass).
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