Home Health & Hospice Week

Learn these new codes for fluid overload, flu, pancreatectomy, seizures. You've only got about a month to get up to speed on the newest batch of diagnosis codes that will affect home care. Some codes may result in higher home health agency payments under the prospective payment system (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 29, p. 229). Others will lead to better record-keeping and documentation. Starting this fall, you'll need to code with a higher degree of specificity when it comes to reporting fluid overload. 2010's 276.6 (Fluid overload) will expand to include the following: • 276.61 -- Transfusion associated circulatory overload • 276.69 -- Other fluid overload. Transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO), a heart-related condition, "is a circulatory overload following transfusion of blood or blood components," said Mikhail Menis of the Food & Drug Administration, who presented the proposal for this change at the September 2009 ICD-9-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee meeting. [...]