Free Pressure Ulcer Infographic for Auditors and Providers

Pressure Ulcers are injuries to the skin and underlying tissue. You’ve probably seen them fairly often in the patient’s medical record referred to as “bed sores” or “pressure wounds” or “decubitus ulcers.” These pressure injuries can range from mild, with redness to the skin, to very severe with tissue damage and infection that extends deep into the muscle and bone.

Pressure ulcers are often challenging to code because the documentation doesn’t always include the stage or the descriptive words we need to make the most appropriate ICD-10-CM code selection. In ICD-9-CM specificity was also an issue, the codes for pressure ulcers didn’t capture any data on laterality (left or right) nor the ulcer depth and severity. But now with ICD-10-CM coders can more accurately capture the ulcer location and severity. For example, in ICD-10, there are 15 unique codes for left, right, or unspecified heel combination with the depth of injury to the skin, fat layer, muscle or bone. And specificity matters, not just for billing and coding but also for the wellbeing of patients. A study by the Biobehavioral Nursing Research Training Program showed that by having a higher level of specificity in the code selection, providers can improve the identification and tracking of ulcers during patient care.

Download our Infographic, Dissecting Wound Care: A Cheat Sheet, to achieve the highest level of specificity when auditing for Pressure Ulcers.

Our infographic displays the stages of pressure ulcers so you can select the appropriate stage and the appropriate ICD-10 code to get the full description. Use the Wound Care Infographic to improve specificity, increase coding accuracy, and better train physicians to code pressure ulcers more accurately.