heartyoga
Guru
We have been diligently following codes to a T. We have encountered some situation wherein we thought that once a patient has Chronic Atrial Fibrilltion I48.2 it will always be Chronic because that's what it says in the code book.
I had queried our physician and apparently the code book makes it too simplistic. WebMD defines paroxysmal afib as if rhythm reverts back in 7 days; Persistent if it last longer than a year, corrected by cardioversion or ablation; and permanent if it can't be corrected by treatments, usually requiring long term meds to control heart rate and stroke prevention.
We have a patient in the hospital, came in with chronic afib first day and second, third day was diagnosed as paroxysmal, and therefore our coding flip flops back and forth between chronic and paroxysmal.
We are worried that this will raise "red flags" as per THE seminar the other coder went to, but of course, we defer to our physician who explained that sometimes chronic afib can revert back to paroxsymal and vice versa.
The coding book has made it so rigid and permanent that the other coder reads it as immovable, and unchangeable.
We intend to defer to our physician but is there a way i can explain in layman's term to assuage the concerns of the other coder about red flags etc ?
"Pls defer to the physician" does not seem to work with her.
Thanks for your suggestions.
I had queried our physician and apparently the code book makes it too simplistic. WebMD defines paroxysmal afib as if rhythm reverts back in 7 days; Persistent if it last longer than a year, corrected by cardioversion or ablation; and permanent if it can't be corrected by treatments, usually requiring long term meds to control heart rate and stroke prevention.
We have a patient in the hospital, came in with chronic afib first day and second, third day was diagnosed as paroxysmal, and therefore our coding flip flops back and forth between chronic and paroxysmal.
We are worried that this will raise "red flags" as per THE seminar the other coder went to, but of course, we defer to our physician who explained that sometimes chronic afib can revert back to paroxsymal and vice versa.
The coding book has made it so rigid and permanent that the other coder reads it as immovable, and unchangeable.
We intend to defer to our physician but is there a way i can explain in layman's term to assuage the concerns of the other coder about red flags etc ?
"Pls defer to the physician" does not seem to work with her.
Thanks for your suggestions.
