Home Health ICD-9/ICD-10 Alert

Question: We are providing aftercare to an elderly patient who has returned home after having a partial pancreatectomy due to pancreatic cancer. I'm planning to report V58.42 (Aftercare following sur-gery for neoplasm). Should I report another code to provide more detail about the pancreatectomy?

Florida Subscriber

Answer: You can include the code for acquired absence of the pancreas as a secondary diagnosis to further identify the status of the patient -- V45.79 (Other acquired absence of organ). However, because this code is a nonspecific code, it doesn't add valuable information.

This patient most likely still has the cancer, so code the appropriate code from the 157.x category for the pancreatic cancer, such as 157.0 (Malignant neoplasm of head of pancreas).