Wiki COPD with Acute Exacerbation with Acute Bronchitis

[elizabeth24]

When you have a patient with COPD with exacerbation and acute bronchitis - we are thinking it requires 3 diagnosis codes.... one for the COPD with exacerbation (J44.1), one for the COPD with acute bronchitis (J44.0), and a third code for the bronchitis (J20.9).

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[pamtienter]

I would agree with your codes. When the diagnosis is both of a lower respiratory tract infection and exacerbation of COPD, both J44.1 and J44.0 are coded, followed by a code for the specific lower respiratory infection, which in your example is the acute bronchitis.

 

[mistygomezcpc@gmail.com]

I believe you would only report two codes- J44.0 and J44.1. J44.0 describes the acute bronchitis so J20.9/acute bronchitis unspecified is not needed. I believe it's the same as 9 codes and when you report COPD w/acute bronchitis on the same claim with acute bronchitis- they'll reject. I think the "use additional code to identify infection" means to report the organism (B95 -B97 categories).