Pediatric Coding Alert

Question: If the parents meet with the doctor to talk about the child’s condition and the child isn’t present, which ICD-10 code should they report? Would it be Z71.0 (Person encountering health services to consult on behalf of another person)? Or would the primary ICD-10 code be the one that the parents are talking with the pediatrician about?

Codify Subscriber

Answer: Both of your suspicions are accurate. As the primary diagnosis code, you would use the reason the parents are presenting (for instance, if the condition is asthma, you’d report the appropriate asthma code as primary). Then as your secondary code, you’ll report Z71.0 (Person encountering health services to consult on behalf of another person) to describe why the patient isn’t there.