Foot Injuries - what is the difference between #5283 & #5284?

[Navy4life]

 

Okay so I was looking up the ratings for the foot and I found two I should eventually fall under for my foot:

Code 5283: A broken bone in the foot, whether it has not healed properly or at all, is rated on how badly it affects the functioning of the foot. If it is just a bit painful, but overall the foot functions okay, then it is rated 10%. Something more serious, possibly causing significant pain, is rated 20%. Something very serious that significantly affects the use of the foot, but the foot can still be used, is rated 30%.

Code 5284: All other foot conditions and injuries are rated based on their severity and on how much the foot can be used. A moderate condition is rated 10%, a moderately severe condition rated 20%, and a severe condition rated 30%. This coding is only used if none of the other codes can satisfactorily describe the symptoms of the condition. For example, if there is a bone condition in the foot, but it isn’t a break, then it most likely will still be rated under code 5283 as a broken bone since it still affects the same kind of things a broken bone would. Similarly if the condition is a disease, then it should be rated under the code for a similar disease. If it doesn’t fit into any of those other options, then it can be rated here under 5284.

So since my right foot has two breaks to the 5th metatarsal bone (image attached) and I had surgery to repair it (image attached) where I had screws and pins to the spiral fracture and bone graft to the transverse fracture, which code suits me the best?  This break to my right foot is a DIRECT result to my L ankle issues (already S/C).

 

[Vync]

4 hours ago, Andyman73 said:

I don't expect to hear back from him till Wednesday, just to give him time to dig out of the snow and then look at my case.  Thanks both of you!

I will report back to this space the results of my email to Mr. Mcdonald.

Semper Fi.

Andyman

Best of luck! I hope they can put the brakes on the stupidity!