AHA webinar on using Z codes to document social determinants of health

The AHA will host a March 12 webinar on using Z codes to document social determinants of health, a valuable but underused tool for hospitals to improve the health and well-being of their patients and communities. Participants will learn how social determinants impact health, how to code them and how coding benefits patients and communities. Register here. 

According to a recent report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, health care providers used Z codes to document SDOHs for 467,136 Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in 2017. That’s 5% more beneficiaries than in 2016, when the codes became available as part of the new ICD-10-CM coding system for health care claims, but only 1.4% of Medicare FFS beneficiaries. 

For more on using Z codes, see the AHA’s new resource on ICD-10-CM Coding for Social Determinants of Health.