With latest advances in treatment options, the mortality rate for septic shock has decreased to 30-40%. Early diagnosis and aggressive antibiotic therapy within 6 hours of establishing the diagnosis has played a significant role in improving clinical outcome.
Urosepsis is sepsis caused by infections of the urinary tract, including cystitis, or lower urinary tract and bladder infections, and pyelonephritis, or upper urinary tract and kidney infections. Nearly 25 percent of sepsis cases originate from the urogenital tract.
Documentation issues: When SIRS is documented with an inflammatory condition, such as pancreatitis, the inflammatory condition should be sequenced first, followed by the code for SIRS, R65. 1-. When SIRS is documented with an infectious source, for instance, “SIRS due to pneumonia,” only code pneumonia.
ICD-10-CM Code for Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) of non-infectious origin without acute organ dysfunction R65. 10.
The final diagnosis is sepsis due to pneumonia. In this case, since the sepsis was present on admission and due to the underlying infection of pneumonia, the coder would sequence sepsis (A41. 9-Sepsis unspecified organism) as the PDX and pneumonia (J18. 9-Pneumonia, unspecified organism) as a SDX code.
Sepsis is a systemic response to infection. It is identical to SIRS, except that it must result specifically from infection rather than from any of the noninfectious insults that may also cause SIRS (see the image below).
9: Fever, unspecified.
It is marked by fast heart rate, low blood pressure, low or high body temperature, and low or high white blood cell count. The condition may lead to multiple organ failure and shock. Also called systemic inflammatory response syndrome.
Coding sepsis requires a minimum of two codes: a code for the systemic infection (e.g., 038. xx) and the code 995.91, SIRS due to infectious process without organ dysfunction. If no causal organism is documented within the medical record, query the physician or assign code 038.9, Unspecified septicemia.
Sepsis is a complication that happens when your body tries to fight off an infection, be it pneumonia, a urinary tract infection or something like a gastrointestinal infection. The immune system goes into overdrive, releasing chemicals into the bloodstream to fight the infection.
According to the guidelines above, sepsis would be the appropriate principal diagnosis if it is the reason the patient is admitted, and meets the definition of principal diagnosis.
Four SIRS criteria were defined, namely tachycardia (heart rate >90 beats/min), tachypnea (respiratory rate >20 breaths/min), fever or hypothermia (temperature >38 or <36 °C), and leukocytosis, leukopenia, or bandemia (white blood cells >1,200/mm3, <4,000/mm3 or bandemia ≥10%).
Sepsis is a clinical syndrome that complicates severe infection and is characterized by the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), immune dysregulation, microcirculatory derangements, and end-organ dysfunction.
SIRS can be readily diagnosed at the bedside by the presence of at least two of the following four signs: body temperature alterations (hyperthermia or hypothermia), tachycardia, tachypnea, and changes in white blood cell count (leukocytosis or leukopenia).
Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s response to an infection damages its own tissues. Without timely treatment, sepsis can progress rapidly and lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and then death. Proper coding of sepsis and SIRS requires the coder to understand the stages of sepsis and common documentation issues.
Sepsis is an extreme response to infection that develops when the chemicals the immune system releases into the bloodstream to fight infection cause widespread inflammation. This inflammation can lead to blood clots and leaky blood vessels, and without timely treatment, may result in organ dysfunction and then death. Severe cases of sepsis often result from a body-wide infection that spreads through the bloodstream, but sepsis can also be triggered by an infection in the lungs, stomach, kidneys, or bladder. Thus, it is not necessary for blood cultures to be positive to code sepsis (guideline I.C.1.d.1.a.i).
To improve sepsis documentation, coding staff needs to work closely with clinical documentation improvement specialists (CDIs), and everyone must be clear on what documentation is needed to correctly code sepsis. A physician champion can be helpful to establish guidelines for the physicians and standard terminology to use when documenting sepsis. A coding tip sheet that includes various scenarios is a helpful tool for the coding department to standardize definitions and the interpretation of the coding guidelines. A regular audit of sepsis DRGs or sepsis as a secondary code can help to identify documentation issues and coders who need more education. Sepsis is never going to be easy to code, but with continuous education and teamwork across departments, the sepsis beast can be conquered.
For instance, if sepsis, pneumonia, and acute renal failure due to dehydration are documented, the code for severe sepsis may not be assigned because the acute renal failure is not stated as due to or associated with sepsis. If the documentation is unclear, query the physician.
SIRS is an inflammatory state affecting the whole body. It is an exaggerated defense response of the body to a noxious stressor, such as infection or trauma, that triggers an acute inflammatory reaction, which may progress and result in the formation of blood clots, impaired fibrinolysis, and organ failure.
Septic shock refers to circulatory failure associated with severe sepsis. It is a life-threatening condition that happens when the exaggerated response to infection leads to dangerously low blood pressure (hypotension). Septic shock is a form of organ failure.
Localized Infection. Almost any type of infection can lead to sepsis. Infections that lead to sepsis most often start in the lung, urinary tract, skin, or gastrointestinal tract. When localized infections are contained, they tend to be self-limiting and resolve with antibiotics.
That response may be adaptive. Conversely, a patient can have sepsis without meeting the requisit e minimum number of SIRS criteria.
These criteria are sensitive, but not specific. It has been observed that the SIRS criteria do not necessarily indicate a dysregulated, life-threatening response. That response may be adaptive. Conversely, a patient can have sepsis without meeting the requisite minimum number of SIRS criteria.
Sepsis-3 states that the condition “is a syndrome without, at present, a validated criterion standard diagnostic test.”. It also notes that “there are, as yet, no simple and unambiguous clinical criteria or biological, imaging, or laboratory features that uniquely identify a septic patient.”.
The SIRS subset is not defunct, even if you totally buy into Sepsis-3. It is still valuable to trigger us to take a close, hard look at each patient and determine why their vital signs are deranged. In the ED, we used to say, “never let a tachycardic patient go home without an explanation.”.
She was a physician advisor of a large multi-hospital system for four years before transitioning to independent consulting in July 2016. Her passion is educating CDI specialists, coders, and healthcare providers with engaging, case-based presentations on documentation, CDI, and denials management topics. She has written numerous articles and serves as the co-host of Talk Ten Tuesdays, a weekly national podcast. Dr. Remer is a member of the ICD10monitor editorial board, a former member of the ACDIS Advisory Board, and the board of directors of the American College of Physician Advisors.