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Question: If a patient has stress fractures in multiple fingers, would you report an ICD-10-CM code for each finger?

North Carolina Subscriber

Answer: Not for these types of injuries. You鈥檒l choose a single diagnoses code that covers all the fingers on one hand.

For example, let鈥檚 say encounter notes indicate that the surgeon treated a patient with stress fractures in their right thumb and index finger. It is the initial encounter for this patient with this injury. On the claim, you鈥檇 report M84.344- (Stress fracture, right finger(s)).

Don鈥檛 forget: You鈥檒l also need to add a 7^th character to complete the diagnosis code. For M84.344-, the 7^th characters indicate:

• A = initial encounter for fracture
• D = subsequent encounter for fracture with routine healing
• G = subsequent encounter for fracture with delayed healing
• K = subsequent encounter for fracture with nonunion
• P = subsequent encounter for fracture with malunion
• S = sequela. 

Chris Boucher, MS, CPC, Senior Development Editor, AAPC