Otolaryngology Coding Alert
Use 3-Month Timeframe When Coding Chronic Sore Throat
Question: A patient has come in with a sore throat for the past seven days. Would this qualify as an acute or chronic sore throat? New Jersey Subscriber Answer: Since the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAHS) doesn’t give any specific information on acute versus chronic timeframes for sore throats as they do for sinusitis, we will fall back to more general guidelines to answer this question. According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a disease can be considered chronic if its symptoms extend beyond three months. In this example, sore throat is a symptom, but ICD-10 will direct you to code sore throat as acute pharyngitis, a disease. Since these symptoms have only lasted a total of seven days, you will use code J02.9 (Acute pharyngitis, unspecified).
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