Guideline for coding living donor organ donation

This page explains how we living donor organ donation; it has it's own page because many concepts tie together around this and the information should only live in one place. See also Guideline for coding organ donation after death.

Organ donors during admission for donation

• Code Preparatory care (incl preop optimization) as as Primary Admit Diagnosis for a live organ donor who comes in electively before donating the organ (usually a kidney) to be "tuned up" by the surgical service.
• In most cases, the person goes off to OR to have the organ harvested and never returns to ICU or Medicine. In that usual case, there will be no codes identifying that the person was an organ donor, and this is OK .
• In the rarer case where they go to OR, get the organ harvested and have a problem that gets them to an ICU or one of our wards, then you should code BOTH of the following:
  • As an Admit Procedure, combine the organ removed with Procure, Harvest, Obtain for Further Use
  • As an Admit Diagnosis, code Organ donor (organ/tissue donation by the donor) AND whatever operative complication they had that led to coming to the unit.

Organ donors during future admissions

During future admissions, code the relevant following Organ removal code as a Comorbid Diagnosis: