Surgical Wound

Does a dehiscence trump an infection in a surgical wound?

re: Surgical Wound

I don't think we know what you mean by "trump."

re: Surgical Wound

I know what she means as an old card player." Trump" means takes precedence, in other words: would be the most important condition to code first. In this case, the dehiscence may have caused the infection, or the infection may have caused the dehiscence, and MAYBE the MD documented the reason for either. The reason for either is the 1st Dx. Your external cause will probably be the same no matter what you choose for the first dx. It shouldn't matter either way how you order them if there is no documentation as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, unless your pt is an IP and you are coding for a facility. If original poster has an encoder, she should code both conditions and then change the sequence order to see if the DRG changes any.