Eli's Rehab Report

SLPs: Take note of the speech-language related revisions and additions.

Last July, we announced a string of new ICD-9 codes that would affect your speech-language diagnoses digits. Now it's time to go live. For claims with dates of service of Oct. 1 and after, you should start using the 2010 ICD-9 codes.

Changes affecting SLPs are as follows:

• New ICD-9 codes: 784.42 (Dysphonia), 784.43 (Hypernasality), 784.44 (Hyponasality), 784.51 (Dysarthria), 784.59 (Other speech disturbance).

• Invalid ICD-9 code: 784.5 (Other speech disturbance).

• Revised ICD-9 codes: 784.40 (Voice and resonance disorder, unspecified), adding the phrase "resonance disorder" to the old code; 784.49 (Other voice and resonance disorders), adding the phrase "voice and resonance disorders" to the old code. Another revised code was V57.3 (Care involving speech-language therapy), adding the word "language" to the code.

The American Speech-Language Hearing Association recommended these changes to clarify the difference between phonation disorders and resonance disorders.

Note: No other ICD-9 updates for 2010 other than the speech codes above affect therapy diagnoses.