Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Follow one-to-one crosswalk.

Despite a major CPT® revamping of genetic test codes (see "81200-81479: Get Ready for Molecular Pathology Overhaul" in this issue), you won’t see a similar change for reporting those test results when you change to ICD-10 on Oct. 1, 2014.

In fact, you can expect a direct crosswalk of a few ICD-9 codes to ICD-10 for reporting a limited number of molecular pathology test results.

Don’t Identify Gene

ICD-9 provides the following limited codes to report some genetic test results:

• V84.01 -- Genetic susceptibility to malignant neoplasm of breast
• V84.02 -- … ovary
• V84.03 -- … prostate
• V84.04 -- … endometrium
• V84.09 -- … to other malignant neoplasm
• V84.81 -- Genetic susceptibility to multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN)
• V84.89 -- … to other disease.

Each of the preceding codes crosswalks directly to the following codes:

• Z15.01 -- Genetic susceptibility to malignant neoplasm of breast
• Z15.02 -- … ovary
• Z15.03 -- … prostate
• Z15.04 -- … endometrium
• Z15.09 -- … to other malignant neoplasm
• Z15.81 -- Genetic susceptibility to multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN)
• Z15.89 -- … to other disease.

Notice: Neither ICD-9 nor ICD-10 distinguishes the diagnosis codes based on the specific genetic test. For instance, physicians may select Z15.01 or Z15.02 based on BRCA-1 and/or BRCA-2 positive results from a test such as (but not limited to) 81211 (BRCA1, BRCA2 [breast cancer 1 and 2] [e.g., hereditary breast and ovarian cancer] gene analysis; full sequence analysis and common duplication/deletion variants in BRCA1 [i.e., exon 13 del 3.835kb, exon 13 dup 6kb, exon 14-20 del 26kb, exon 22 del 510bp, exon 8-9 del 7.1kb]).