Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

Question: When adding the 7th character on OB codes, where it states “0 not applicable, fetus 1, fetus 2, fetus 3, fetus 4, fetus 5, 9 other fetus,” is the 0 to be used for a single gestation? And then for multiple gestation, is fetus1 equivalent to baby A and fetus 2 to baby B and so on? This was how I was reading it, but someone else told me they thought fetus 1 is for single gestation and fetus 2 was for twins and fetus 3 was triplets. Could you please clarify?

Pennsylvania Subscriber

Answer: You are correct. Be sure you let your colleague know she/he is wrong. The final character of “0” means there is no information about which fetus has the issue or it is a singleton pregnancy. Fetus 1 means baby A, fetus 2 means baby B, etc. To indicate the presence of twins or triplets, you report the multiple gestation codes that describe the type using the O30 (Multiple gestation) code category codes — in addition to a code for the complication the fetus has and its identity (if required) with the final 7th digit.