Diagnosis Coding: 6 Tips Help Keep Your ICD-9 Coding on Track

Cheat sheets come with a warning label.

To help ensure your coding complies with ICD-9 guidelines, there are several tactics you can use:

1. Always read the notes in the ICD-9 manual that apply to the code you're considering, says Denae M. Merrill, CPC, HCC coding specialist in Michigan.

2. Read the ICD-9 official guidelines that apply to your "specialty periodically as a refresher. If we only read them when the codes change once a year, it is difficult to absorb and retain that information for an entire year," says Lisa S. Martin, CPC, CIMC, CPC-I, chargemaster specialist for OSF Healthcare System [...]

- Published on 2011-09-07