kewing
Networker
I have a lung-transplant recipient. The pre-transplant cultures taken from the donor lung are growing MSSA, Stenotrophomonas and Candida. Does anyone have resources to share that show the correct diagnosis coding? I have been using R89.5, followed by the codes identifying the organisms. Reasoning: The presence of the organisms is not being identified as an "infection" in the documentation or as having an adverse effect on the functioning of the transplanted lung, so I don't believe a complication code is correct; the cultures were taken prior to the lung being transplanted, so my thinking is the lung isn't yet a respiratory organ of the patient. I haven't found information on this online or in this forum, and would appreciate any transplant coding expertise that is out there. Thanks.