Wiki Disorders of the back

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Joiaw

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My doctors are diagnosing patients with both 721.3 (Lumbar spondylosis) and 724.4 (lumbar radiculopathy). I want to bill the spondylosis only since in the book it has an exclude note with the 724 codes or can they have both diagnosis?
 
By "excludes" it means that the code 724 does not include spondylosis, so you would code that in addition to the 724 code.

Hope that helps.
 
The spondylosis is degenerative osteoarthritis which is separate from radiculopathy in which one or more nerves is affected and does not work properly. A patient can have one or the other or both so you can use both codes.
 
724 states excludes conditions due to spondylosis which had me confused and since radiculopathy could be caused by spondylosis I thought I would only need to code the spondylosis, I guess when IcD-10 comes out I won't be as confused because there will be a combination code for spondylosis w/radiculopathy M47.2 but this is very helpful info. Thanks:)
 
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