Home Health ICD-9/ICD-10 Alert

Published on Tue Sep 27, 2005 PDF

Question: I'm unclear on when it's appropriate or necessary to use code V58.67. Can you explain this code for me?

Answer: Don't use V58.67 (Long-term [current] use of insulin) when a patient has type I diabetes. A patient with type I diabetes is unable to naturally produce insulin, so he must use it on a long-term basis, making V58.67 redundant in these cases.

Use V58.67 when coding for patients with type II diabetes, an unspecified diabetes or gestational diabetes, because these patients may or may not use insulin to control their blood sugar. So if a type II or gestational diabetic is using insulin, you'd use V58.67 to indicate that fact, explains Lynn Yetman, RN, MA, HCS-D, with Reingruber & Co. in St. Petersburg, FL.