Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

When your pathologist diagnoses an adenomatous polyp submitted from a colonoscopy, you’ll need to know much more information to choose the proper ICD-10 code. 

 

Make sure you train your pathologists to document the proper details so you can properly code these cases when ICD-10 goes into effect on Oct. 1, 2015.

From One to Many

 

You just need one code for adenomatous colon polyp under ICD-9: 211.3 (Benign neoplasm of colon).

But once ICD-10 goes into effect, things get more complicated. That’s because the ICD-10 diagnosis varies based on location, as you can see in the following codes: 

Saving grace: If the surgeon doesn’t document where the polyp came from, or your pathologist doesn’t pass on that information in the pathology report, you still have an option for reporting the diagnosis: D12.6 (Benign neoplasm of colon, unspecified).