I was talking with a colleague the other day. He told me he bills plenty of outpatient CPT® consult codes every year for patients who are chronically tired and short of breath. He said before ever entering the room he can make the diagnosis. He looks at their weight in the chart. There's always evidence of obesity.
ICD: 780.7 Malaise and fatigue.
He says the ICD code 780.7 should be malaise and fat-igue. You don't need a physician billing a $300 evaluation and management consult to make that diagnosis. Try telling that to the patient though. They are always convinced something else is wrong. He had one patient storm out of the office, then got not one but two second opinions, both of whom told her she needed to lose weight. He's even had patients file complaints against him for telling them they needed to lose weight to feel better. It seems to me like these patients are being misdiagnosed. The don't have ICD 780.7, they have ICD 278.0: obesity. That's the problem and a weigh to a cure. This obesity someecard helps to explain.
