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New Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) ICD-10-CM Code

Published on 

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

 | Recovery Auditor 
 | Coding 
 | Documentation 

Timeline to a New Code

The CDC announced the release of a new code specifically for reporting COVID-19 during the March 18th ICD-10-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee Meeting. This code will be available for use on April 1st, 2020. Following is a timeline of events prompting the speed with which this code is being made available for use:

  • January 30, 2020: The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) disease outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
  • January 31, 2020: Emergency meeting convened by WHO Family of International Classifications (WHOFIC) Network Classification and Statistics Advisory Committee (CSAC). A new ICD-10 emergency code was established by the WHO.
  • 1 – 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease
  • February 11, 2020: During the January 31st meeting, the team noted “2019-nCoV” was a temporary name and likely to change. On February 11th the WHO announced the official name of the virus: COVID-19.
  • March 11, 2020: The Novel Coronavirus Disease, COVID-19, was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • March 13, 2020: A National Emergency was declared in the United States concerning the COVID-19 Outbreak.
  • March 18, 2020: The Coordination and Maintenance Committee Meeting met virtually. It was announced that the COVID-19 code effective date was changed from October 1, 2020 to April 1, 2020 due to the national health emergency. The code that will be effective is U07.1.

U07.1 Coding Instructions

  • This code is classified to Chapter 22: Codes for Special Purposes.
  • Coding Instructions:
  • Use additional code to identify pneumonia or other manifestations
  • Excludes 1:
  • Coronavirus infection, unspecified (B34.2)
  • Coronavirus as the cause of diseases classified to other chapters (B97.2-)
  • Severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS}, unspecified (J12.81)

You can read the entire CDC announcement at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/icd/Announcement-New-ICD-code-for-coronavirus-3-18-2020.pdf

Article Author: Beth Cobb, RN, BSN, ACM, CCDS
Beth Cobb, RN, BSN, ACM, CCDS, is the Manager of Clinical Analytics at Medical Management Plus, Inc. Beth has over twenty-five years of experience in healthcare including eleven years in Case Management at a large multi-facility health system. In her current position, Beth is a principle writer for MMP’s Wednesday@One weekly e-newsletter, an active member of our HIPAA Compliance Committee, MMP’s Education Department Program Director and co-developer of MMP’s proprietary Compliance Protection Assessment Tool.

This material was compiled to share information.  MMP, Inc. is not offering legal advice. Every reasonable effort has been taken to ensure the information is accurate and useful.