During inpatient coding at a municipal medical center, a legitimate postoperative complication is clearly documented and meets reporting criteria, but quality leadership asks the coder to omit it so complication rates look better. What is the ethically correct action?

AHIMA Standards of Ethical Coding prohibit undercoding or omitting reportable diagnoses to improve apparent quality outcomes. Documented complications that meet UHDDS and Official Guidelines criteria must be reported. Metric pressure is not a valid reason to suppress accurate coded data used for quality, payment, and public reporting.