Internal Medicine Coding Alert

READER QUESTION ~ Know Your ICD-9 Order for Drug Interactions

Question: Our patient injected too much insulin and experienced dizziness and blurred vision. Which ICD-9 code(s) should we report for this?

Tennessee Subscriber

Answer: Because the patient took the wrong dosage, your primary ICD-9 code will represent the poisoning code for the drug taken, followed by symptom codes. Since the diabetic patient injected the wrong dosage of insulin, you should refer to the Table of Drugs and Chemicals, find insulin and report the code that appears in the "poisoning" column -- 962.3 (Poisoning by insulinsand antidiabetic agents).

You should then report the patient's symptoms. For example, if the patient presented with light-headedness and blurred vision after taking the insulin, you should report 780.4 (Dizziness and giddiness, whirling sensations in the head with falling sensation, light-headedness) and 368.8 (Other specified visual disturbance, blurred vision NOS).

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