Home Health & Hospice Week

Learn the five fourth digits for 250.xx you should avoid. Coding for diabetes becomes more frequent as the rate of patients with this condition grows. Make sure you're coding correctly -- and securing the case mix points you're due -- by avoiding some common diabetes coding mistakes. Diabetes is an underlying systemic disease, so you should code for it when it's documented that your patient has the condition, even if you don't have an active intervention planned, said Jill Young, CPC, CPC-ED, CPC-IM, with Young Medical Consulting in Lansing, Mich., during the Eli-sponsored audioconference Diabetes: What do YOU need to know about 249.xx and 250.xx? Base your selection on the physician's documentation of these items, says Young: • Type I versus Type II; • manifestations of the disease; • whether the current treatment regimen keeps the glucose levels within acceptable levels (controlled versus uncontrolled); and • whether the patient is insulin-dependent. Check [...]