A hospital inpatient with known malignancy is admitted specifically for treatment of anemia due to chemotherapy. Which sequencing principle should guide the principal diagnosis?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Ask what brought the patient through the door. If this admission is to treat the chemo-related anemia, that anemia leads—then you still carry the cancer and chemo story as supporting codes. You don't auto-promote the malignancy just because it's on the problem list.
Full Explanation
Reason-for-encounter sequencing controls anemia due to antineoplastic chemotherapy. When the encounter is for anemia management, the anemia is sequenced first with the neoplasm and chemotherapy-related codes assigned as additional diagnoses according to Official Guidelines. Automatically sequencing the malignancy first, omitting the anemia or neoplasm, or substituting an unrelated chronic condition misstates the admission purpose.