ICD 10 Coding Alert
Preterm Labor Codes 644.00 And 644.03 Transition to New O60.0-Options
Don’t overlook these Includes notes.
Preterm labor is labor that begins more than three weeks before the patient expects to deliver her baby but after the 20th week of pregnancy. Contractions may cause the cervix to open earlier than normal. Notice that there is no ICD-9-CM code for preterm labor with delivery. You would code that situation with 644.2x.
Currently, you should report preterm labor with:
ICD-10-CM Codes: When your diagnosis system changes after October 1, 2014, you have three new options:
Change: These three choices specify second trimester (O60.02) or third trimester (O60.03). If your provider does not specify which trimester, you would use O60.00, but this should be a rare occurrence if the documentation includes information about the weeks of gestation, which can be converted into trimester information using the ICD-10 definitions for trimesters. When the premature labor results in premature delivery, you should select a different set of codes.
Documentation: In order to report these preterm labor codes, the provider must document that the preterm labor occurred without delivery and the pregnancy’s trimester.
Here is how you’ll find these codes in the Alphabetic Index:
Pregnancy (childbirth) (labor) (puerperium) —see also Delivery and Puerperal
- complicated by (care of) (management affected by)
Coders tips: You will see an Includes notes under the preterm labor category (O60) that says that these codes include onset (spontaneous) of labor before 37 completed weeks of gestation. But remember, spontaneous labor may also mean spontaneous abortion if it takes place prior to 20 weeks gestation, so you should clarify this information before reporting.
You will also see an Excludes1 note that forbids you from reporting these codes with false labor (O47.0-) or threatened labor NOS (O47.0-).
- - preterm labor
- - - without delivery O60.00
- - - - second trimester O60.02
- - - - third trimester O60.03
- - - second trimester
- - - - with preterm delivery O60.10
- - - - without delivery O60.02
- - - third trimester
- - - - without delivery O60.03
ICD 10 Coding Alert
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