Radiology Coding Alert

Question: A 4-year-old patient was referred to our radiology practice for X-rays following a left elbow injury. The radiologist captured complete elbow X-rays with AP, lateral, and standing views. After interpreting the results, the radiologist issued their findings as a left nursemaid’s elbow.

What codes will I use for this encounter?

Wisconsin Subscriber

Answer: You’ll assign 73080 (Radiologic examination, elbow; complete, minimum of 3 views) to report the three-view elbow X-ray. The radiologist reported they captured anteroposterior, lateral, and standing views of the patient’s elbow, which meets the code’s requirement for the number of views. Each of the three views need to cover the complete portion of the elbow for you to code the procedure as a complete elbow X-ray.

Next, you’ll open your ICD-10-CM code set to code the nursemaid’s elbow diagnosis. In the Alphabetic Index, searching for Nursemaid’s elbow will provide you with S53.03- (Nursemaid’s elbow), which you’ll verify in the Tabular List. In the Tabular List, you’ll find that S53.03- features a 6th character required icon to indicate laterality. You’ll find that each of the six-character codes also require a 7th character to specify the type of encounter. You’ll assign S53.032A (Nursemaid’s elbow, left elbow, initial encounter) since patient is seeking active care for nursemaid’s elbow of their left elbow.