by Dianna Foley, RHIA, CHPS, CCS, CDIP
Test your ICD-10-CM coding skills with this Klutz family experience.Around Halloween every year, the Klutz children’s fears intensify. With all the talk of ghosts and goblins, even the eldest, Egon, can suffer some anxiety. Let see what each of them is afraid of and see if we can exorcise, I mean exercise, our coding skills to appropriately code each fear.
Raymond was lying in the yard, watching ants that were busy at work, when he felt something crawling on his right leg. He glanced behind him and immediately started crying as he was terrified of spiders and spotted one on his leg. His mother came running from the house, and was able to calm Raymond down once she explained that it wasn’t a spider at all, but instead, a daddy-long-legs.
Peter was helping his dad change a light bulb on the peak of the porch. While Egon held the ladder, Peter climbed up to hand the bulb to his dad who was on the roof which was a good fifteen feet off the ground. When Peter glanced down, he started to feel dizzy and sweaty, and dropped the bulb. He began to yell and froze on the ladder. Mrs. Klutz had to go up to get Peter, since Egon was still holding onto the ladder, and help him down. This was the first anyone realized that Peter was afraid of heights.
Egon began cleaning up the broken light bulb to help his parents, and accidentally cut his hand on a piece of glass that was stuck into a floor board. It was not a deep cut, but enough to draw blood. At the sight of the blood, Egon got very pale and lightheaded. Mrs. Klutz had him put his head between his knees, while she bandaged the cut. Luckily, it just required some hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid.
After he felt better, Egon wanted to distract little Dana from the episode involving Peter and himself, so he suggested a game of hide and seek. Janine helped little Dana find a great hiding place inside a cedar chest, but forgot little Dana’s fear of being in enclosed spaces. Janine removed her from the chest and after little Dana was comforted, Janine positioned little Dana behind the bathroom door where she quietly stayed until she won the game.
Later that evening, a severe thunderstorm rolled through the area with gusty wind, lightning, and heavy rain. Poor Janine was beside herself as her fear is of storms. Mr. Klutz thought movie night would be a good remedy for all. So, they popped some popcorn and watched “Ghostbusters”, and all was well, at least for now!
