Author: Grebner, Leah A.; Stanfill, Mary H

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: November 2005

The term coagulopathy can be confusing for coding professionals because it may refer to a myriad of conditions that are classified differently in ICD-9-CM. Take for example a patient who has bleeding somewhere (e.g., hematuria or epistaxis). The physician lists “coumadin coagulopathy&rd....

Author: Grocela, Joseph; Stanfill, Mary H

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: April 2004

Fewer than five years ago, ICD-9-CM contained just one code for classifying hyperplasia of the prostate. Today, there are nine ICD-9-CM codes in category 600, Hyperplasia of prostate. What is hyperplasia, and why have so many changes been made to this code category in recent years?

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Author: Arrowood, Danita; Johnson, Laurie M.; Wieczorek, Michelle M.

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes | Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: July 2015

Clinical documentation improvement (CDI) programs have proven their worth with over a decade of success and continued role expansion in the inpatient setting. As the healthcare industry prepares for new initiatives such as value-based purchasing, electronic health records (EHRs), and ICD-1....

Author: Bryant, Gloryanne H.; Gold, Robert S.

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: February 2002

by Gloryanne Bryant, RHIT, CCS, and Robert Gold, MD


Coding cardiac conditions and treatments can be difficult for coders, due both to the intricacies of the muscle and its workings and the lack of specificity and documentation in the medical record. This article reviews common cardiac....

Author: Imel, Margo

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: June 2002

In the July/August 2001 Journal of AHIMA, “SNOMED Takes the Next Step” describes the terminology’s structure, use in electronic patient records, the evolutions from SNOMED® RT and an overview of the mappings of SNOMED® CT. This article is an update on SNOMED, with a clo....

Author: Fritz, April

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: May 2005

To the average coder, the hospital’s cancer registrar is the person who comes and gets charts, keeps them for a while, and then returns them to the HIM department. But little is known about what goes on at that other desk. This article outlines a cancer registrar’s duties and the d....

Author: Jones, Lolita M.

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: June 2003

Podiatry is the specialty that manages diseases and problems of the feet. Many coding specialists find it difficult to assign CPT codes to podiatry cases. Because so many podiatry procedures are currently performed in the outpatient setting, it is common for coding specialists to be faced with....

Author: Bronnert, June

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes | Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: May 2006

In 2003 61 percent of adults drank alcohol, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.1 Illicit drug use for that same year is reported at 8 percent, with 6 percent using marijuana.2 With those statistics, it’s a safe bet that coding professionals will encounter records repo....

Author: Gold, Robert S.; Bowman, Sue E

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes | Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: January 2006

Coders assign codes to disease processes for many reasons, including capturing diseases treated at facilities, accurate representation of illness severity, and specificity of causes of symptoms and justification for treatment. To this end, we have been perplexed by terminology used by physicia....

Author: Blevins, Ida K.

Source: Journal of AHIMA - Coding Notes

Publication Date: May 2004

Home care coding has always been a challenge given the fact that codes are assigned upon admission or on the “front end” of care provision. The luxury of having a complete medical record filled with physician documentation to support diagnoses (e.g., in acute-care facilities) is a....