Final answer:
Verification of ICD-10-CM codes in the Tabular List is essential to ensure accuracy and specificity in the code, influencing treatments, lab work, billing procedures, and statistical analysis.
Step-by-step explanation:
ICD-10-CM codes must be verified in the Tabular List for two main reasons: A) to ensure that the most accurate code is chosen, and D) to provide a higher level of specificity.
Using the Tabular List to verify codes is a crucial step in the medical coding and billing process. It ensures that the code selected from the Alphabetic Index is accurate and that it reflects the condition described in the patient’s record as precisely as possible. Clarity and specificity are essential for a variety of reasons, including confirming that all treatments and laboratory work are appropriate for the diagnosis, streamlining the health-care management system, and facilitating accurate billing and prompt payment of claims. Furthermore, ICD codes are used by medical laboratories to identify necessary tests, by medical billers to process claims, by vital-records keepers to record causes of death, and by epidemiologists to calculate morbidity and mortality statistics.
Two likely locations where one would find an ICD code are on medical laboratory test orders and in health-care management systems.