At the onset of the pandemic, increasing use of three codes — 31500 for emergency intubations, 99291 for intensive care unit treatment and 99233 for complex hospital visits — reflected rising numbers of COVID-19 patients, according to Tony Mira, president and CEO of Anesthesia Business Consultants.
ABC coding teams have captured a wide range of diagnoses used for COVID-19 patients and "COVID-like" patients whose virus status isn't definitively known, Mr. Mira said.
Nineteen diagnoses used for COVID-19 patients, in order of frequency for clients in ABC's database:
U07.1: COVID-19
R06.03: Acute respiratory distress
J96.90: Respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
J96.00: Acute respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
I46.9: Cardiac arrest, cause unspecified
J96.01: Acute respiratory failure with hypoxia
J98.8: Other specified respiratory disorders
J98.9: Respiratory disorder, unspecified
J96.91: Respiratory failure, unspecified with hypoxia
R09.02: Hypoxemia
B97.29: Other coronavirus as the cause of diseases classified elsewhere
J95.859: Other complication of respirator (ventilator)
R09.2: Respiratory arrest
Z20.828: Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral communicable diseases
R06.89: Other abnormalities of breathing
J18.9: Pneumonia, unspecified organism
J96.10: Chronic respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
I50.9: Heart failure, unspecified
R06.00: Dyspnea, unspecified
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