AKI- Is this an acceptable abbrev. for Acute Kidney Injury and coded as N.179 in your facility?

Hi CDI and Coding team,

When AKI is documented in the EMR without further documentation as "Acute Kidney Injury". Do you query physician to spell out Acute Kidney Injury?

Recently, our coding team  asked the CDI team to query physicians for clarification whether AKI is Acute Kidney Injury vs. Acute Kidney Insufficiency (even if it meets the definition/clinical criteria for AK Injury). Currently, CDI team seeks clarification for AKI if there's inconsistency or conflicting documentation (injury and insufficiency) or if there's a need for Clinical validation query.

One of the coding team sent a clarification to AHA and AHA's advice in response to the inquiry was: "There is the possibility that AKI may refer to acute kidney insufficiency. In that case code N289, Disorder of kidney and ureter, unspecified is the correct code. Therefore, query the physician for clarification when AKI is documented without further clarification of the condition...."  (I have requested our doing team to share the original letter in order for us to have a better understanding of AHA's response)

Your input is very much appreciated!

Thank you.


Emilie Navidad-McDermid

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