"Icd9 failure oral antibotics
I have a doctor who has tried oral antibotic on patient with cellulitis. He has put a DX of failure on oral antibotic. What ICD9 code would you use."-Quote.
Well Btadlock 1, let me first appreciate all the responses you give in the forum, I have been watching through. It is tremendous and awesome. I like and appreciate your talents!
This one you have given is closer but I feel that we cannot take it as a "drug resistance" because the documentation is ONLY for "oral administration" as for now. To label a drug to be resistant, it should be resistant to all routes of administration; even those category of "without mention of resisitance to multiple drugs" also do not suit because the organism has to be first of all deemed to be resistant organism which is lacking in our document.
So where would we go for more appropriate? It is hard to find in our ICD manual.
I though for a moment whether V15.81 'noncompliance with medical treatment'. Hither too I wonder whether the "noncompliance is a term exclusive for the patients part or the drug noncompliance too?!
Why, thank you! I have entirely too much free time, and I like to figure out answers to stuff, myself, so the forum has become a little hobby for me lately...
I see your point, and I'm not well-versed enough in the medicine side of things to know for sure, but if an infection is resistant to a particular antibiotic given in oral form, would it be any more likely to be susceptible to the drug if given another way? (for example, if giving a penicillin orally didn't clear up an infection, would the doctor try giving a shot of it, or would they just try another antibiotic?) I would think the route of administration would be a moot point, if not. (Again, I really don't know how that works...)
The reason I went with the resistance to drug category is because that's how I interpreted "antibiotic failure" - I probably should have asked more about that. What exactly "failed" about it? My immediate assumption was that it failed to treat the infection, which implies that the organism is resistant to the drug (in my opinion). But if the diagnosis listed is really describing the patient's inability to take the antiobiotic orally, which would also make sense, I'd probably code the encounter with something more specific to the reason that the oral administration failed. (eg - if the patient can't swallow the pill and is in the office to have the treatment re-assessed because of that, I code the cellulitis, then dysphagia). The noncompliance code you mentioned doesn't specify whether the noncompliance was intentional or not, so I'd think it would be applicable in that situation as well.
Another code that looked like it might fit somehow is V58.83 - Encounter for therapeutic drug monitoring - it's got a definition note that says " Drug monitoring: measurement of the level of a specific drug in the body, or measurement of a specific function to assess effectiveness of a drug.". It's an aftercare code, though, which indicates that the condition is healing, and treatment is not being directed at a current, acute disease. (The conventions just say to code the disease diagnosis, otherwise.)
I guess I'd have to see the more of the picture to get a better idea of what the doctor was talking about with the diagnosis listed...I'm interested to see how others would code this...