Posted on Friday, April 27, 2018 7:53 PM
Mary S. Deakle, BCHH-C, COS-C, Senior Manager of Compliance and Education at Corridor
The FY2019 Proposed Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System rule (IPPS) rule was released April 24, 2018 and includes 435 ICD-10-CM code changes valid as of October 1, 2018. The proposed rule includes 247 new codes, 139 revised codes, and 49 codes that are being either deleted or expanded to offer more options for specificity.
There are a few exciting changes proposed for FY2019 concerning post-procedural infections. The current code for Infection following a procedure (T81.4- ) is proposed for expansion to include more specific types of postoperative infections such as: Sepsis following procedure (T81.44-), superficial (T81.41-), deep (T81.42-), organ and space (T81.443-) and other (T81.49-) surgical site infections.
These new codes will also require a 7th character of A, D or S just like the current post-procedural infection code. “These new codes will allow ICD-10-CM coders to be able to code as specific as the documentation more so than using the current post-procedural infection code,” says Mary Deakle, BCHH-C, COS-C, Manager of Compliance and Education at Corridor Coding Services. Some other new codes proposed for addition include: Neoplasms: (Specified carcinoma types of the eyelid (both upper and lower), Expanded codes for Myalgias to include specific muscle involvement and new codes for visual disturbances just to name a few.
The full listing of new and revised codes can be viewed here (see tables 6a, 6c, and 6e).
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