Wiki Addiction vs. Dependence

[chrisden_7]

I am coding for a Internal Medicine physician that states in his dictation a patient has a drug addiction, does this fall into the same category as dependence, I'm probably being too picky, but I like to see the word I'm looking for at least in the text below the subheading and addiction is not listed anywhere in the 303-305.XX tabular list, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[PeaPod1]

From my experience, many provider and substance abuse professionals use
abuse, addiction and dependence interchangeably. I would be comfortable using one of the codes from the series that you mention in your post.
Good question.