KalliP_67450
New member
I am watching one of the videos on coding secondary cancers from this group and have a question.
In this video, an example was given the patient comes into the office for his injection for prostate cancer. The patient also has a history of bladder cancer. From what I am gathering, you code prostate cancer as secondary because bladder cancer was primary cancer back however far it could be. My question is, if a person had cancer 10 years ago, say lung cancer. Now, after ten years the patient develops breast cancer, you can't just assume this breast cancer is secondary just because the patient had lung cancer years ago right? Don't you have to base it off what the documentation says and link it to the lung cancer in order to code it as secondary?
Thanks!
In this video, an example was given the patient comes into the office for his injection for prostate cancer. The patient also has a history of bladder cancer. From what I am gathering, you code prostate cancer as secondary because bladder cancer was primary cancer back however far it could be. My question is, if a person had cancer 10 years ago, say lung cancer. Now, after ten years the patient develops breast cancer, you can't just assume this breast cancer is secondary just because the patient had lung cancer years ago right? Don't you have to base it off what the documentation says and link it to the lung cancer in order to code it as secondary?
Thanks!