Question about US gov't surgery codes

From: cathy:- (anonymous@medispecialty.com)
Mon Jan 7 10:11:31 2002


Does anyone know if there a ICD-9-CM code for adhesiolysis? It's certainly hard to do any statistical analysis on how many people get adhesions after surgery and need more surgery if you don't record the real reason for the second surgery.

Maybe my conspiracy theory mind is working overboard, but it seems to me that most adhesion problems are accidental injuries caused in the course of surgery -- and surgeons have a strong interest in hiding the extent of the adhesional injuries that they cause... If you have a hysterectomy and then a year later you have a bowel obstruction and they do surgery for that then I bet that gets listed as a bowel obstruction and nothing about adhesions, right?

--
cathy :-)

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