Unanswered Secondary anemia due to menorrhagia

[RinshidaK_89540]

Original posted date: Feb 10, 2016

Question:
Jod
How would we code secondary anemia due to Menorrhagia
Patient is having excessive bleeding with menstrual cycle and developed anemia. I think it should be coded N92.0 and D64.9. Can you please advise if this is correct way to code this? Thanks!

Answer thread:
Carolyn Heath
In medical terminology, menorrhagia is an excessive blood loss in a menstrual cycle. I googled secondary anemia due to menorrhagia and found this answer: D50.0. I then went to my coding manual to check out the code and it said iron deficency anemia secondary to blood loss (chronic). To further see if this is the correct code, I went to FindACode and put in the description which gave me my confirmation.

 

[JamieN_9335]

I was wondering, would we also code the Menorrhagia? I came across two videos that discusses anemia coding, and the first video mentioned that the D50.0 is only coding for the first part of the diagnosis statement, which is the anemia due to chronic blood loss, and that the code does not mention any other condition. On the second video, it was mentioned that when both anemia and another condition are present on admission and meet the definition of principal diagnosis, either condition may be sequenced first. So, would we need both D50.0 and N92.0 codes?

 

[AngelaT_88859]

By only coding the anemia, it shows that the person has it but doesn't help identify the cause. If this is the only information available at the time of coding, then sure, I'd only code the anemia. However, if the information is available that states the cause of the anemia, which in this case is the menorrhagia, I would code it unless there were any specific exclusions. A woman can heavy menstruation, without being anemic. From what I see in this scenario, I do not see any excludes 1 or excludes 2.