There are a few codes in ICD10CM that may represent death.
For instance,
S06.0X7 Concussion with loss of consciousness of any duration with death due to brain injury prior to regaining consciousness
(the whole list’s attached examples_death.xlsx (12.5 KB))
We are thinking of implementing some guidelines on deciding whether or not those S-group condition concepts have actually resulted in the death of a patient or not. The assumption is that if no events/some suspicious events happen after the appearance of these codes then we can infer the patient is dead; as brain injuries require stay in ICU and drug administration, some records must persist after S-codes occur.
We’ve looked into patient data to find out what concepts actually occur after the alleged death.
From the medical perspective, the following concepts when appearing after death do not revoke it:
- Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (eg, in cardiac arrest) 92950
- Cardiac arrest 427.5
- Accident caused by unspecified electric current E925.9
- Acute respiratory failure 518.81
- Atropine, adrenalin administration
So, the idea is to use ICD10CM S codes to determine the death when we see no events or events from the list above after the death.
Please share your thoughts.