Wiki Screening Question

[jingwersen]

If a patient is diagnosed by a physician with hyperlipidemia and hypertension and the patient comes in for labs every 3 or 6 months as well as for an office visit to monitor the condition and to refill medications, what diagnosis is used? When the labs are drawn we never use screening diagnosis codes because we already know the patient has the disease. However, the insurance plan the patient has will cover screening labs at 100% once a year. The patient wants the diagnosis changed to screening. I didn't think I could use a screening diagnosis once the patient was diagnosed. Please help. Also if anyone has documentation on this I would love to see it.

Thanks,
jennyingwersen@hotmail.com

 

[mitchellde]

it is NOT screening but it is med monitoring. Use V58.83 and the V58.6x code for the drug. You are correct in that these are not screening test but they are test to monitor the medications that have been prescribed, to check and see if the drugs are being effective in managing the condition and not damaging other body systems.

 

[annielou]

Coding for labs

If the labs are being drawn in conjunction with the patient's annual wellness or preventative care exam, I code them to the wellness code. If they are drawn at other times of the year to keep up with the patient's disease process i would use the diagnosis codes for the disease.