Wiki Diabetes Self-Management Training for Child

[NBarna]

I work in Pediatrics. Our diabetes educators use 98960 when billing for 30 minutes of face-to-face diabetes self-management training with a patient. A situation has arisen in which a patient is too young to grasp the concept of self-managing anything, and the diabetes educator is having to train the patient's caregiver on managing the patient's diabetes. When interpreting the description of 98960 strictly, NOT having the patient present during the educational session doesn't seem to be an option. I'm thinking that's unfair in this situation and am also thinking that if the diabetes educator documents the reason the patient is not present for the training, perhaps 98960 could be billed. Thoughts?

Thanks for your time!