Medical Coding

Answer: C - Both sign/symptom and unspecified codes are appropriate to use when the actual diagnosis is unable to be made. In some cases, the infecting organism needs to be identified for a specific code to be used, so in these cases when the infecting organism isn’t known at the time of the patient’s encounter an “unspecified” code is appropriate to be used.
ICD-10-CM does have codes for signs and symptoms or “unspecified” codes. Although they are not listed for every possible diagnosis, if they are an option they are allowed to be used based on the information available at the time of the patient’s visit/encounter.