06-20-2025
Address at Diagnois
Patient diagnosed 2025 w/ cancer. In EMR you find both a PO Box and a physical address.
P.O. box 123
123 ANYWHERE STREET Apt #23
Question: How would you code the address at diagnosis?
- P.O. box 123
- PO BOX 123
- 123 ANYWHERE STREET Apt#23
- 123 ANYWHERE STREET APT 23
Answer & Rationale: 123 ANYWHERE STREET APT 23
SEER Program Coding & Staging Manual Address at Diagnosis–Number and Street
Coding Instructions
1. Record the number and street address or the rural mailing address of the patient’s usual
residence when the tumor was diagnosed
2. Record the physical number and street address of the patient at diagnosis. If the patient also has a Post Office (PO) Box address, record the PO Box address in Address at Diagnosis–Supplemental.
3. Spell out the address fully with standardized use of abbreviations and punctuation per U.S.
Postal Service (USPS) postal addressing standards. The USPS Postal Addressing Standards,
Publication 28, October 2023, can be found on the Internet at
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub28/pub28.pdf
4. The use of capital letters is preferred by the USPS; use recognized USPS standardized
abbreviations. Do not use punctuation unless absolutely necessary to clarify an address; leave
space between numbers and words.
Example: 103 FIRST AVE SW APT 102
5. Limit abbreviations to those recognized by the Postal Service standard abbreviations. They
include, but are not limited to: AVE (avenue), BLVD (boulevard), CIR (circle), CT (court), DR
(drive) PLZ (plaza), PARK (park), PKWY (parkway), RD (road), SQ (square), ST (street), APT
(apartment), BLDG (building), FL (floor), STE (suite), UNIT (unit), RM (room), DEPT
(department), N (north), NE (northeast), NW (northwest), S (south), SE (southeast), SW
(southwest), E (east, W (west). A complete list of recognized street abbreviations is provided in
Appendix C of USPS Publication 28.
6. Punctuation is normally limited to periods (for example, 39.2 RD), slashes for fractional
addresses (101 1/2 MAIN ST), and hyphens when a hyphen carries meaning (289-01
MONTGOMERY AVE). Use of the pound sign (#) to designate address units should be avoided
whenever possible. The referred notation is a follows: 102 MAIN ST APT 101. If a pound sign
is used, there must be a space between the pound sign and the secondary number (425 FLOWER
BLVD # 72).
