STEMI and NSTEMI Coding – How to Tell The Difference

STEMI and NSTEMI Coding – How to Tell The Difference

Q: (STEMI and NSTEMI)– How do I tell the difference between a STEMI and a NSTEMI? I don’t think I fully understand this.

A: Well, you probably don’t and that’s OK, we can help with that. The first thing you need to know is your physician is going to tell you whether it is a STEMI or NSTEMI. And just so you know, the abbreviation for the STEMI, we’re talking about a myocardial infarction that is what the MI stands for, so it’s a heart attack. The ST is they’re talking about the evaluation of the ST wave.

We’ve got some great pictures here that will help you. This first one, now these are EKG strips or you can say a heart monitor but an EKG strip is usually how they see this. Let me tell you, one of the things that they can do from this is if you have an EKG done, they can tell if you had a heart attack in the past because of the way this wave is revealing itself.

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