Pulmonology Coding Alert

Hint: Watch out for signs of acute exacerbation and respiratory infections.As bronchiectasis is one type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease -- and a frequently-reported diagnosis, you'll need to be cued in on how to report the condition using ICD-10 codes when the use of this code set kicks off on Oct. 1, 2014.Look for Signs of Exacerbation in ICD-9When reporting a diagnosis of bronchiectasis, you will have to use the ICD-9 code 494 (Bronchiectasis). The inclusions for this code are a diagnosis of recurrent bronchiectasis as well as bronchiolectasis. However, you cannot use this code to report congenital bronchiectasis (748.61) and tuberculous bronchiectasis (011.5).Depending on the presence or absence of symptoms of acute exacerbation, 494 in ICD-9 further expands to the following two codes:494.0 -- Bronchiectasis without acute exacerbation 494.1 -- Bronchiectasis with acute exacerbation Identify Etiology With Additional Code in ICD-10A diagnosis of bronchiectasis you report with 494 in ICD-9 crosswalks [...]