Pecked by turkey: 9 ICD-10 codes to keep handy this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the worst day of the year for home kitchen fires. According to the National Fire Protection Association, fire departments responded to an estimated 1,446 home cooking fires on Thanksgiving 2023. That's nearly four times the daily average. Fires are only part of it. There are also carving knives, deep fryers, undercooked birds, pecan pie allergies and the backyard football game.

Your practice sees the results the following Monday. Burns, lacerations, food poisoning and palpitations will fill the schedule, and every one of them needs a code that's specific enough to get paid. Claims with unspecified codes, missing seventh characters or no laterality are easy denials, and they're avoidable.

Then there are external cause codes. CMS notes that they aren't required nationally unless a state mandate or a payer calls for them. Still, they tell the story of how a patient got hurt, and the codebook has a surprising amount of holiday-specific detail. Here are nine codes worth having ready before the leftovers run out.