Question

Which of the following actions should a billing and coding specialist take to assign a diagnosis code to the highest level of specificity?

Apply only the three-character code to a claim.
Check for exclusion or inclusion notes.
Apply characters four through seven to a claim.
Check for code first or code also notes.

Answer 1

Apply characters four through seven to a claim.

Those additional characters increase the code’s specificity. (Also remember to check inclusion/exclusion and code‑first/code‑also notes when selecting and sequencing codes.)