hepatic encephalopathy with coma
With the addition of the new code for hepatic encephalopathy (K76.82), I've had some trouble understanding whether to still be sending a query to clarify acuity.
It is my understanding that if there is documentation of a coma, then the coding of hepatic encephalopathy with coma (per the logic) requires clarity of the acuity (acute, acute on chronic, chronic) of the hepatic failure and not the acuity of the coma. However, Providers don't document acute hepatic failure on a cirrhosis patient because the coding and clinical lingo don't match up. Which leaves you with hepatic failure, unspecified with coma (K72.91). Since we try to avoid the use of unspecified conditions as much a possible, what options have other CDI been using on a query when clarifying the acuity (on a patient with cirrhosis that has hepatic encephalopathy with coma)?