Cachexia

dvitalone1

Please help. I am so confused. Is this statement correct? It came from a outside contracter coding supervisor when asked if cachexia can be coded alone without BMI or nutritonal diagnosis:

"You can code cachexia when it is documented. You cannot code cachexia with severe malnutrition because it is integral to the severe malnutrition but you can with unspecified malnutrition."

Thanks,
Dawn, RN, CCDS