Primary Care Coding Alert

Question: Our family physician saw a male patient who is suffering from throbbing headaches during sexual intercourse. He was diagnosed with coital cephalgia. Can I use 339.82 for this condition?

New Jersey Subscriber

Answer: Coital cephalgia is a type of sex headache, which you should code as 339.82 (Headache associated with sexual activity). Physicians use a variety of medical terms and diagnoses to describe the same condition: sex headaches. Look for these other names when considering this disease: benign sex headache, benign vascular sexual headache, and sexual headache. ICD-9 lists them under 339.82. Preorgasmic and orgasmic headaches, significant subclassifications of sex headaches, are also listed under this code.

Watch out for misleading diagnosis. Other conditions may confuse you as they appear closely after sex. For example, postcoital headache occurs immediatelyafter sex; however, ICD-9 makes no mention of this condition. The term is even absent from the index. The best bet, therefore, is to use 784.0 (Headache).