Diabetes Code Control

Diabetes can sometimes be as perplexing for your doctor as it is for you.

Because its symptoms and complications can vary so widely from one person to the next, the medical community and Medicare have created a set of codes to describe the stage or condition of diabetes patients.

Your doctor has the opportunity to provide more complete and accurate data through correctly coded claim-form entries. Correct diagnosis coding of diabetes is critical to appropriate payment for services, and to obtaining future funding for diabetes research and treatment. Personally, you may find these codes in your medical charts or on your hospital bills.

Diagnosis codes are composed of codes with 3, 4, or 5 digits. Codes with three digits are included as the heading of a category of codes that may be further subdivided by the use of fourth and/or fifth digits to make the diagnosis more clear.

Here’s an example: A patient is referred to a physician with a diagnosis of diabetes. However, there is no indication that they have diabetic complications. It would be incorrect to assign code 250 since all codes in this series have five digits. Two more digits are needed to make it complete. Because the type of diabetes isn’t specified, and there’s no indication that the patient has diabetic complications, the correct code would be 250.00. The fourth and fifth digits of the code would vary depending on the specific condition of the patient. For example, code 250.33 would be uncontrolled type 1 diabetes with a coma. To learn more about the codes, visit icd-9-code.com or icd9cm.chrisendres.com.

For more information visit http://diabetescareclub.com/lsm/diabetes-code.php