by Dianna Foley, RHIA, CHPS, CCS
Test your ICD-10-CM coding skills with this Klutz family experience.
Last February before the pandemic struck, the entire Klutz family was working on the scenery for the upcoming school play. On this particular Saturday morning, all the children were working together in the family garage (attached to their single-family house) building a wall to be used in the final scene. Naturally, being the Klutzes, they were not able to get through the process unscathed. Here’s what happened. See if you can assign the appropriate ICD-10-CM (including external cause codes) and CPT codes (with modifiers if needed) as appropriate to each child’s injury.
Egon, being the eldest, was nailing a support board to the upper part of the wall. Unfortunately, the hammer slipped and he stuck his left thumb, which was holding the board in place. This started a cavalcade of events leading to his siblings injuries. Egon drops the heavy board which strikes Raymond on his right collarbone, and as the board continues to fall, it strikes little Dana on the ankle, and then it finally lands on Janine’s left foot. Peter then trips over the board, landing on his face, which resulted in severe pain.
Mr. and Mrs. Klutz immediately gathered the children into the car and drove off to the ER where the following definitive diagnoses were made:
Left proximal phalanx shaft fracture of thumb-reduced and splinted
Left fifth metatarsal fracture-no treatment needed as the fracture was in alignment
Closed nasal fracture-manually reduced
Fractured distal, right clavicle-strapping of shoulder placed to maintain the alignment since fracture was not displaced
Non-displaced, right, lateral malleolar fibular fracture-casted, short leg-walking-type cast
Click HERE for the answers.
