Pediatric Coding Alert

Question: I’ve been confused for a while about which ICD-10 code is appropriate for reporting an aspirin allergy. Aspirin is a pain reliever but also a platelet inhibitor, so is Z88.6 or Z88.8 the best choice?

AAPC Forum Participant

Answer: For an allergy to aspirin, Z88.6 (Allergy status to analgesic agent) is the best choice over Z88.8 (Allergy status to other drugs, medicaments and biological substances). The reason why comes down to the terms “analgesic,” and “medicaments” as well as drug classification.

Analgesic is defined as a drug that relieves pain but doesn’t treat disease. They include opioids, non-opioids (such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)), and co-analgesics or adjuvants. Aspirin is classified as an NSAID. It is used to relieve pain but does not address the underlying cause of the pain.

Medicaments are substances used to treat a disease.

As you mentioned in the question, aspirin does decrease platelet function, which means it’s technically also a medicament that can treat and prevent heart attacks by decreasing the body’s ability to form blood clots. However, its drug class is NSAID, so coding aspirin as an analgesic agent provides more information about the drug’s pharmacological class and nature of its therapeutic effect. That kind of specificity is important for accurately capturing and communicating the nature of patient care. Since Z88.6 represents the patient’s allergy to NSAIDs, that is the most specific code to report.