How to code sprains, dislocations, fractures

As a primary care physician or pediatric emergency physician, you often are the first provider to see a patient with an injury such as a fracture or dislocation. Often, your main goal is to make the patient as comfortable as possible and protect the injury until he or she sees a specialist.

You may provide an evaluation and management (E/M) service and stabilize the injury. You are not planning to assume care for this type of injury because surgery might be required or the care is out of your scope. Or you determine that the injury is a sprain instead of a fracture, and you stabilize the injury to aid in healing....