Primary Care Coding Alert

And use these 3 pro-coding tips to sharpen your skills.

Think you’re a bronchitis coding expert? Well, here’s a way to prove it.

Take a look at these four tough questions, which all relate to one of the most common lung conditions that your provider diagnoses. Then write down your answers before comparing them to ours.

Question 1: What is the difference between bronchitis and bronchiolitis, and how would you code for a diagnosis of chronic bronchiolitis?

Question 2: There are two different ways to code bronchitis with tracheitis. What are they, and what factor would lead you to choose one over the other?

Question 3: Tracheobronchitis affects both the trachea in the upper part of the respiratory system as well as the bronchi, which are a part of the lower respiratory system. Given that the ICD-10 index does not list a code for the condition, and that respiratory codes are divided into upper respiratory infections and lower respiratory infections, how would you assign a code for this condition?

Question 4: Your physician diagnoses a patient with acute bronchitis due to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). As the condition is caused by a virus, should you add a code from the Certain Infectious and Parasitic Disease chapter of ICD-10 to document the RSV in addition to an appropriate acute bronchitis code?

Think you know the answers?