CAISS Extremities exam questions and answers

CAISS Extremities exam questions and answers How is nerve palsy or neuropraxia coded? - Correct Answers A contusion How is nerve paralysis coded? - Correct Answers A laceration How are ligament tears/injuries coded? - Correct Answers Sprain How are muscle or tendon tears coded? - Correct Answers Strain A man touched a high voltage line with flash burns and injury to the soft tissue and muscle of the thumb side of his R hand requiring serial debridement of necrotic muscle tissue. Which of his injuries would be coded? - Correct Answers Code 080002.3 Electrical injury w/ muscle necrosis. If electrical burns involve flash, code only the electrical injury and not the associated flash skin burns. If patient has a stab wound of the thigh extending into muscle (but not bone), would it be assigned to the External ISS body region or the Extremity ISS body region? - Correct Answers The injury is assigned to the External ISS body region; code 816014.1 . Although the dictionary does include specific codes for muscle injuries in the Extremities chapters, those codes are intended for blunt injury. Penetrating injuries to the extremity that do not include injuries to specific underlying structures such as vessels or bone should be coded using the penetrating codes and assigned to the External body region for ISS purposes. The same rule for penetrating injuries applies to other regions of the body as well, with a few exceptions as noted in the AIS 2005 dictionary in the Head and Face chapters. If you have a penetrating injury to the upper extremity that involves 20% blood loss from the brachial artery should you use the Penetrating Injury with blood loss code (716006.3), or should you code only the artery laceration (720608.3), or should you code both? - Correct Answers The rule for penetrating injuries is to code the underlying injury(ies) when known. In this case, code only the brachial artery 720608.3. If a patient develops an extremity compartment syndrome after admission, would it be included as an anatomical diagnosis? - Correct Answers It can be both a diagnosis and a complication. If it is a complication or sequela of an injury, it is not coded. Only if it is an injury is it coded As an example where it would not be coded: A patient who develops a compartment syndrome from swelling related to a broken tibia has a complication, and in this case the compartment syndrome is not coded. - Correct Answers As an example where it would be coded: A patient whose arm gets trapped in a vacuum line and comes to the ED with marked swelling but no broken bones and is diagnosed with compartment syndrome is coded. Is a syndesomotic injury considered a joint or ligament? - Correct Answers A syndesmosis is a complex fibrous joint between two bones and connected by ligaments and a strong membrane with slightly movement allowed. The distal tibiofibular syndesmosis/inferior tibiofibular joint is a syndesmotic joint. How are bilateral extremity fractures coded? - Correct Answers Bilateral fractures should be entered two times, coding right and left sides separately What bones are part of the shoulder? - Correct Answers Clavicle, humerus, scapula (acromion process is part of the scapula) How do you code a fracture of the acromion process? - Correct Answers Scapula FX NFS Where would you code a fracture of the surgical neck of the humerus? - Correct Answers Proximal humerus extra-articular, unifocal, single fracture line. (The anatomic neck code is found lower in the proximal humeral code and is considered articular.) Where do