Education is The Most Powerful Tools...

Corona Virus and It’s Medical Codes

Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

Symptoms - Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.

Other Corona Virus in the past – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/25/what-is-coronavirus-symptoms-wuhan-covid-19

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals. In 2002, Sars spread virtually unchecked to 37 countries, causing global panic, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 750. Mers appears to be less easily passed from human to human, but has greater lethality, killing 35% of about 2,500 people who have been infected.

Medical Codes for Corona Virus-

In nations which have a Billing System for Healthcare Claims, the new corona outburst has thrown a challenge in finding the codes for the Claims.

Given below are the codes for the various coding systems –

• B34.2 - Coronavirus infection, unspecified –
• Can be used as primary code
• B97.29 – Other coronavirus as the cause of diseases classified elsewhere
• Cannot be used as a primary code, its only a status code not a current illness

ICD 10 AM – B34.2 - Coronavirus infection unspecified site

ICD 11 - 1D92 Coronavirus infection, unspecified site

Nations which follow U.S system of coding should use the ICD 10 CM code whereas the Australian modification, based coding should code the ICD 10 AM code.

WHO has created a new version of ICD 11 codes which is on it’s way to support nations which wish to adopt a new billing system.