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Coding COVID-19 Patient Lung Transplant Status
- Published on July 2, 2020
When a patient is admitted for management of respiratory manifestations of COVID-19 and is also status-post lung transplant, the coding guidelines state that lung transplant infection diagnosis should be sequenced as the primary diagnosis followed by U07.1, COVID-19 as a secondary diagnosis. It is VERY important to pay attention to the sequencing of the diagnoses. The Tabular List note at the lung transplant infection code states to “use additional code to specify infection”, and coding guidelines state “a transplant complication code is only assigned if the complication affects the function of the transplanted organ.” In this scenario, the COVID-19 infection has affected the function of the transplanted lung.