Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

Good news: ASC-US, ASC-H, LGSIL, and HGSIL will have one-to-one matches.When a patient's cervical Pap smear returns abnormal results, you should report 795.0x (Abnormal Papanicolaou smear of cervix and cervical HPV). This code series requires a fifth digit, and if you don't include it, this "could be a reason for a denial," says Peggy Stilley, CPC, COBGC, ACS-OB, director of auditing services at the American Academy of Professional Coders.Here how ICD-9 defines this series:795.00 -- Abnormal glandular Papanicolaou smear of cervix795.01 -- Papanicolaou smear of cervix with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US)795.02 -- Papanicolaou smear of cervix with atypical squamous cells cannot exclude high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (ASC-H)795.03 -- Papanicolaou smear of cervix with low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LGSIL)795.04 -- Papanicolaou smear of cervix with high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HGSIL)795.05 -- Cervical high risk human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA test positive795.06 -- Papanicolaou smear of cervix with cytologic evidence of malignancy795.07 -- Satisfactory cervical [...]