News: Coordination and Maintenance Committee proposes new 2021 COVID-19 codes

Members of the ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee proposed creating new ICD-10-CM codes related to screening, exposure, and personal history for COVID-19. The new codes, if finalized, would take effect in January 2021, Revenue Cycle Advisor reported.

In response to “multiple requests for related codes,” the Committee announced that it is considering adding the following codes to the ICD-10-CM code set:

• Z11.52, Encounter for screening for COVID-19
  
  • Reported for people who are asymptomatic
• Z20.822, Contact with and (suspected) exposure to COVID-19
• Z86.16, Personal history of COVID-19

In addition, the committee proposed adding a new code that would allow providers to report COVID-19-caused pneumonia with one code instead of two:

• J12.82, Pneumonia due to COVID-19
  
  • Includes the inclusion terms, “pneumonia due to COVID-19” and “pneumonia due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2”

Existing coding guidance for COVID-19-related pneumonia instructs coders to report two ICD-10-CM codes for the condition: U07.1, COVID-19, and J20.89, Other viral pneumonia. The creation of the new combined code would “improve coding specificity for pneumonia due to [COVID-19],” according to Committee members.

Finally, the Committee proposes adding a new code for multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS)—a condition associated with COVID-19, particularly in children (MIS-C):

• M35.81, Multisystem inflammatory syndrome

Comments on the proposed changes are due to the committee by October 9 and should be sent to nchsicd10CM@cdc.gov.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by Revenue Cycle Advisor. To read all of ACDIS’ coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, click here. To read more about MIS-C specifically, click here. Note that the ACDIS Regulatory Committee recently published a resource related to these coding proposals. You can read their work here.