Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

Find out what the only appropriate outcome code to use with O80 is.

If all goes according to plan, a pregnant patient will see your physician for an uncomplicated, full-term delivery.

ICD-9-CM Code: Currently, you should report a normal delivery with 650 (Normal delivery).

ICD-10-CM Code: However, when your diagnosis system changes, you will report O80 (Encounter for full-term uncomplicated delivery) instead. This means you have a one-to-one correlation between your ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes for a full-term, uncomplicated delivery. 

Documentation:To use O80, the patient should have been admitted for a full-term normal delivery and delivers a single, healthy baby without any complications during the delivery episode. 

Here is how you will find this code in your Alphabetic Index:

Admission (for) - see also Encounter (for)

- delivery, full-term, uncomplicated O80

Delivery (childbirth) (labor)

- completely normal case O80
- normalO80
- spontaneous O80
- term pregnancy NOS O80
- uncomplicated O80

Encounter(with health service) (for)

- delivery, full-term, uncomplicated O80

Coder Tips:Always use O80 as your primary diagnosis. 

You should use this code as a single diagnosis, because this code specifically tells a payer that the patient had no complications. Do not tack on another code from Chapter 15. However, you will have to report a Z3A code to indicate her gestational age at delivery.  Full term is defined as a pregnancy that is greater than 37 completed weeks to 40 completed weeks. Therefore, one of the following codes you be reported: Z3A.37 (37 weeks gestation of pregnancy), Z3A.38 (38 weeks gestationof pregnancy), Z3A.39 (39 weeks gestationof pregnancy) or Z3A.40 (Weeks of gestation of pregnancy, weeks 40 or greater). If the patient had a complication at some point during the pregnancy but the complication isn’t present at the time of delivery, you can still use O80.

The only appropriate outcome code to use with O80 is Z37.0 (Single live birth).