Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

If the gestational diabetes is treated with both diet and insulin, code this.Gestational diabetes can often go undetected well into the pregnancy. Patients new to diabetes require significant counseling and education to establish a controlling regimen of care throughout the pregnancy.Currently, for gestational diabetes, you should use 648.8x (Other current conditions in the mother classifiable elsewhere, but complicating pregnancy, childbirth or the puerperium; abnormal glucose tolerance; gestational diabetes) and choose the fifth digit (0-4) to indicate when the condition or complication occurred. This will be your primary code. Example: If your ob-gyn saw a 20-week ob patient who was not diabetic before her pregnancy and she is now an insulin-dependent gestational diabetic, you should code her as 648.83 (Abnormal glucose tolerance; antepartum condition or complication). Include V58.67 (Long-term [current] use of insulin) as a secondary code as the physician is treating the gestational diabetes with insulin.In ICD-10, you'll have specific [...]