pulmonary insufficiency
I was wondering if anyone could give me any more guidance or information regarding the definition of pulmonary insufficiency as it has caused quite some confusion at our facility.
This is in reference to documenting acute pulmonary insufficiency following surgery. In the past, when I was working at smaller hospitals the guidance was pulmonary = respiratory if you follow semantics, which gives you an MCC for a lot of cardiac surgery patients.
However upon discussion with physicians in an academic teaching center where I currently work, they see pulmonary insufficiency as a valve problem, not a respiratory compromise issue, which would seem to make more sense separating a code following cardiac surgery and a different code for following other surgery (both MCCs).
However I also ran into an article in the CDI journal where advice was to query for acute pulmonary insufficiency code in morbidly obese or OSA patients to capture the MCC? Asking because it also affects other issues if it's meant to be a cardiac related diagnosis instead of a respiratory related diagnosis. We want to make sure we're giving our team the most accurate, updated and appropriate advice.
Thanks in advance
Christopher