Coordination and Maintenance Committee Holds Marathon Meeting

Comments on the PCS proposals may be emailed to ICDProcedureCodeRequest@cms.hhs.gov by Oct. 15 for codes considered for implementation on April 1, 2022.

The Coordination and Maintenance Committee met virtually Sept. 14 and 15, starting with the procedure proposals. There were two ICD-10-PCS proposals that did not have clinical presentations, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requested that comments on administration of Fostamatinib and administration of broad consortium microbiota-based live biotherapeutic suspension be submitted.  

There were also four clinical presentations, plus the update for Section X (new technology) and addenda with key updates.    

Comments on the PCS proposals may be emailed to ICDProcedureCodeRequest@cms.hhs.gov by Oct. 15 for codes considered for implementation on April 1, 2022, or by Nov. 15 for the procedure codes requesting implementation on Oct. 1, 2022. The recording for the procedure portion of this meeting has not been posted, as of the writing of this article.

After lunch on Sept. 14, the meeting continued with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) leading the 47 proposal presentations, plus the proposed addenda. The diagnosis proposals continued into the next day. Comments on the diagnosis proposals can be sent via email to nchsicd10cm@cdc.gov. The comment deadlines are the same for the diagnosis codes/proposals.

The recordings for the diagnosis portion of the meeting have been posted and can be found at the URL listed in the resources at the end of this article. These recordings can be reviewed to assist in developing comments.

There were a couple of diagnosis proposals that require feedback from clinicians and coders. The first one is bronchiolitis obliterans and bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome. The issue in this proposal was the inconsistent inclusion of the word “syndrome.” This condition is not to be confused with BOOP (bronchiolitis obliterans organized pneumonia).   

The second proposal that seemed to generate a lot of discussion was malignant pericardial effusion (MPE). The discussion centered around the instructional note of “code first underlying malignancy.”    The question that was raised was if a patient would ever be admitted for treatment of MPE.

I participated in the development of the PTEN hamartosis tumor syndrome (PHTS). This proposal was presented and seemed to have been accepted by the audience, as no questions or concerns were raised at the time. This is a rare condition caused by a genetic mutation of the PTEN gene but is also a clinical marker for malignancy. A specific diagnosis code is needed for clinical trials, as well as providing quality healthcare. This proposal was similar to von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease, which is another rare genetic disorder.

The long meeting ended with a request to submit comments on the proposals that had been presented. Reviewing these proposals is suggested with the submission of comments to the CDC. This process is how coders and clinicians can impact the development of ICD-10-CM/PCS.

Programming Note: Listen to Laurie Johnson and the Coding Report Tuesdays on Talk Ten Tuesdays at 10 Eastern.

Resources:

https://www.cms.gov/medicarecodingicd10c-and-m-meeting-materials/2021-09-14-icd-10

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/icd/icd10cm_maintenance.htm