Faux (pseudo) pneumonia

With pneumonia as the most reimbursable diagnosis, that makes pneumonia that most common fake diagnosis written on charts.  I call it faux (pseudo) pneumonia.  You can call it fake pneumonia.  I like faux for fun.

You know the patient doesn't have real pneumonia because no x-ray is done, and if one is done it's normal. The patient's lungsounds are normal or not consistent with pneumonia.  White blood cells are within normal range, and do not indicate an infection. 

So the patient is sick enough to be admitted, yet doesn't meet criteria.  Therefore the diagnosis of faux pneumonia is made. 

A good example of this is an Alzheimer's patient was recently released from the hospital and sent to a nursing home. The home refused to admit the patient because he was combative.  Not knowing what else to do with the patient, we readmitted him to the hospital with faux pneumonia.

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