Pediatric Coding Alert

Hint: Report only diabetic complications related to current episode of care.Veteran coders may recall with nostalgia the days when all pediatric diabetes patients were assigned the same diagnosis code--but those days are over.Not only has ICD-9 expanded the diabetes code set over the years to enhance specificity, but pediatricians are also seeing patients with more complex cases. While in the past it was rare to see pediatric patients with Type II diabetes, now it's becoming commonplace. In addition, pediatricians often treat diabetic manifestations. Use these three steps for definitive diabetes diagnosis coding to ensure that your ICD-9 codes justify the services you bill.1. Select Fourth Digit FirstYou must determine the fourth digit for 250.xx (Diabetes mellitus) according to the type of diabetic complication the patient has, if any. Diabetes patients may have more than one complication. If this is the case, you should code only the complication relevant to services the [...]