Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

You may not be familiar with the ICD-10 code set yet, but it continues to grow anyway. CMS recently posted the 2012 ICD-10 code update, which not only shows which codes were added, deleted, and revised this year, but also offers information on the new diagnosis coding system, which will be mandatory for all providers as of Oct. 1, 2013. For example: In 2011, ICD-10 codes for hemorrhoids were found in the I84 category (Diseases of veins, lymphatic vessels, and lymph nodes, not elsewhere classified), which spanned from I84.0 (Thrombosed hemorrhoids) through I84.6 (Residual hemorrhoidal skin tags). Now, however, hemorrhoids are classified with "Diseases of the digestive system (K00-K945)," which is found in chapter 11 of ICD-10. You'll find the ICD-10 codes for hemmorhoids now assigned to codes K64.0 (First degree hemorrhoids) through K64.9 (Unspecified hemorrhoids). Many other ICD-10 codes follow suit with new and revised code assignments, so you [...]