Abnormal movements
We see infants with abnormal movements witnessed at home by parents who we admit for evaluation for possible seizure disorders. If no diagnosis is found and we have no witnessed events we code R25.9 Unspecified abnormal involuntary movements. Some of our coders question if we should be using G25.9 Unspecified extrapyramidal and movement disorder. The question seems to come from the issue that our MDs don't document "involuntary". From a CDI perspective, most infant movement is involuntary and this is more of a rule out admission.
How are you coding this type of patient in your facilities?
Appreciate any help,
David
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Comments
I agree with code R25.9 for documentation of “abnormal movements” in an infant and the logic re: infants having few true voluntary movements. If coding really has a problem with the use of this code, I suggest sending to Coding Clinic and using R29.818 in the interim. I absolutely would not use code G25.9 for this as no movement disorder has been diagnosed.
That said, it sounds like there were no abnormal movements actually present during this admission so unless they note the suspicion for abn movements at dc you might want to take a look at Z03.89 instead.