Wiki Fracture help!!!

[TBAKER1026]

I have a patient who is following up in the office with PCP status post inpatient rehab for a femur fracture. This is the first time we are seeing her for this DX but there is no treatment to be done and the fracture is healing as it should be. So my question is....should my ICD10 code have an A for initial encounter since this is the first time we will see her for this DX or should my code have a D since it is considered a post treatment follow up appointment and the fracture is healing as should be. I have read all the coding guidelines but I'm not sure if we would fall under evaluation by new physician since this is our first time seeing her.

 

[mitchellde]

Read the guidelines as updated for 2015.
While the patient may be seen by a new or different provider over the course of treatment for an injury, assignment of the 7th character is based on whether the patient is undergoing active treatment and not whether the provider is seeing the patient for the first time.

These are patient diagnosis codes, not provider encounter codes. So you code to the status of the injury not the provider encounter. Your scenario would subsequent.