Neurology & Pain Management Coding Alert

Question: Encounter notes indicate that the physician treated a patient with “hebephrenic schizophrenia.” Which type of schizophrenia is this? Would I use F20.9 as an ICD-10-CM code for this patient?

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Answer: You should not use F20.9 (Schizophrenia, unspecified) for this patient because there is a more accurate diagnosis code. Report F20.1 (Disorganized schizophrenia), as hebephrenic schizophrenia is an alternate term for disorganized schizophrenia. Another alternate term for F20.1 is hebephrenia.

There are alternate terms for all the types of schizophrenia listed in ICD-10-CM except F20.9. Here are the other schizophrenia diagnosis codes and their alternate terms:

• F20.0 (Paranoid schizophrenia)
  • Paraphrenic schizophrenia
• F20.2 (Catatonic schizophrenia)
  • Schizophrenic catalepsy
  • Schizophrenic catatonia
  • Schizophrenic flexibilitas cerea
• F20.3 (Undifferentiated schizophrenia)
  • Atypical schizophrenia
• F20.5 (Residual schizophrenia)
  • Restzustand (schizophrenic)
  • Schizophrenic residual state
• F20.81 (Schizophreniform disorder)
  • Schizophreniform psychosis NOS
• F20.89 (Other schizophrenia)
  • Cenesthopathic schizophrenia
  • Simple schizophrenia.

Chris Boucher, MS, CPC, Senior Development Editor, AAPC