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Home Health & Hospice Week

Diagnosis Coding:

Look For New Obesity Codes This Fall

Published on Tue Jul 13, 2010

Master these coding changes by Oct. 1. It's less than a few short months until you must be ready to report the new and changed 2011 ICD-9 codes. Now that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has finalized the update that will take effect Oct. 1, you can get a jump start on the changes. The 2011 ICD-9 update expands the body mass index (BMI) codes to demonstrate higher BMIs with five new codes. In the past, you had just one V code to represent a BMI index over 40 (V85.4), but the new edition of ICD-9 will provide additional sub-classifications, ranging from a BMI of 40.0 to 44.9 (V85.41) through a BMI of 70 and over (V85.45). While official coding guidelines state that BMI can be coded based on clinical assessment, obesity must be documented by the physician before you can list a code for it, says coding [...]
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