Pediatric Coding Alert

Your practice probably performs well child visits each day, but how to report them will change in 2014. When ICD-9 becomes ICD-10 in 2014, you will not always have a simple crosswalk relationship between old codes and the new ones. Often, you’ll have more options that may require tweaking the way you document services and a coder reports it. Check out this common routine child health check visit scenario, and discover what you’ll report after October 1, 2014. Current way: When a patient comes in for a scheduled preventive wellness exam, you should attach V20.2 (Routine infant or child health check) to an annual visit code (99381-99385 for new patients, or 99391-99395 for established patients). ICD-10 difference: In 2014, you’ll instead use Z00.129 (Encounter for routine child health examination without abnormal findings) to reflect the physician’s visit. If the physician did encounter abnormal findings during the visit, you’d instead report [...]