Anticoag monitoring

tmondella@hhsnj.org

We have a patient we are seeing post surgery for wound care. He is on Coumadin and performs his own pt/inr checks with his own home monitor. Can I still use Z51.81 if the nurse is asking the patient his results & discussing changes made to coumadin?

rn4coding

I would think not. The coding tip on that code states: This code is associated with venipuncture and should only be used if monitoring drug levels. If not drawing the blood, I would think that it would be sufficient to do the code for anticoagulants and the condition that requires the anticoagulant.