Ask the Expert

Question:
Do we have an ICD-10-CM for Personal History of COVID-19? Are they developing one? Also for sequel of?

Jen M. Growney, CPC
Fee Abstractor II

Response:
AHIMA and the AHA Central Office, representing two of the four members of the Cooperating Parties for the ICD-10-CM, jointly published guidance for the correct reporting for history of COVID-19 should be assigned to Z86.19, Personal history of other infectious and parasitic diseases. Following similar logic, the correct code for sequela would be coded to B94.8, Sequelae of other specified infectious and parasitic diseases. Based on Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, generally coding of sequela will require two codes. The first code will be the nature or condition of the sequela followed by the sequela code, B94.8. More specific codes can potentially be added to the ICD-10-CM code set in the future. Unfortunately, there was no specific code created for personal history of COVID or any sequela for emergent use.

Reference:
https://journal.ahima.org/ahima-and-aha-faq-on-icd-10-cm-coding-for-covid-19/
ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting

— Janice Tarlecki, MBA, RHIA, CCS, is director of internal education and auditing at Ciox.