Tip: Examine POA exempt codes in ICD-10-CM

Inpatient coders are accustomed to assigning a present-on-admission (POA) indicator in ICD-9-CM and they will continue to do so in ICD-10-CM. Although the POA indicators remain the same, ICD-10-CM includes a list of codes that are exempt from POA reporting. Many of them appear in the I69- and O09- series of codes. This makes sense because I69- codes are sequela from cerebral injuries and the O09 codes pertain to supervision of pregnancy.

Many of the Q codes (congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities) are also exempt from POA reporting. A POA indicator will not be necessary for many codes in the S chapter with a seventh character of D (subsequent encounter) and S (sequela).

Download the complete list of codes exempt from POA reporting from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on HCPro’sICD-10 Trainer blog.