Spot the Difference Between Incontinence Types
Question: I’m new to coding in a urology office and need to become familiar with multiple types of incontinence coding. Can you explain how stress and urge incontinence differ from one another? Indiana Subscriber Answer: Stress incontinence describes a patient’s inability to retain urine when a stressor occurs. Those stress triggers might include laughing, sneezing, jumping, coughing, or lifting heavy items. This condition is typically more common in females, but the same code applies no matter which gender the urologist treats. You would code this as N39.3 (Stress incontinence (female) (male)). Urge incontinence, on the other hand, is described as the patient’s sudden urge to urinate, which they do before they’re able to make it to the toilet. It comes on quickly and can happen at any time, day or night, and is caused by the bladder contracting involuntarily. The condition is not triggered by a specific external event as stress incontinence is. To report urge incontinence, you would use N39.41 (Urge incontinence). Lindsey Bush, BA, MA, CPC, Production Editor, AAPC
