Neurosurgery Coding Alert

Question: What is the diagnosis code for a patient with muscular dystrophy?

Louisiana Subscriber

Answer: That question doesn’t have one good answer; there are several diagnosis codes for patients with muscular dystrophy, and a slew of synonyms for these conditions that you’ll also need to know to stay sharp when coding this condition.

Check out this quick primer on muscular dystrophy ICD-10 codes:

• G71.00 (Muscular dystrophy, unspecified). This is the first entry in the condition code set.
• G71.01 (Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy). You should also use this code to represent the following conditions:
  • Autosomal recessive, childhood type, muscular dystrophy resembling Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy
  • Benign [Becker] muscular dystrophy
  • Severe [Duchenne] muscular dystrophy
• G71.02 (Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy). You should also use this code to represent scapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.
• G71.09 (Other specified muscular dystrophies). You should also use this code to represent the following conditions:
  • Benign scapuloperoneal muscular dystrophy with early contractures [Emery-Dreifuss]
  • Congenital muscular dystrophy NOS
  • Congenital muscular dystrophy with specific morphological abnormalities of the musclefiber
  • Distal muscular dystrophy
  • Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy
  • Ocular muscular dystrophy
  • Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy
  • Scapuloperoneal muscular dystrophy

One more: You might think all the muscular dystrophy ICD-10 codes are in the G71.0 (Muscular dystrophy) set, but there is one outside of G71.0. If the notes indicate that the patient suffered from myotonic muscular dystrophy, you would report G71.11 (Myotonic muscular dystrophy). You’ll also use this code to represent the following conditions:

• Dystrophia myotonica [Steinert]
• Myotonia atrophica
• Myotonic dystrophy
• Proximal myotonic myopathy (PROMM)
• Steinert disease.