Patient education, hyperlipidemia

Provide patient education in regard to CHD, hyperlipidemia, therapeutic lifestyle modifications, drug therapy, and therapy adherence. 

Monitor patients who are administered sirolimus for hyperlipidemia using laboratory tests. If hyperlipidemia is detected, initiate subsequent interventions such as diet, exercise, and lipid-lowering agents, as outlined by the National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines. 

Some patients will be seen for multiple reasons therefore, the pharmacist may need to record more than one ICD-9-CM code to fully describe the patient visit. For example, if a client with coronary artery disease (CAD) is referred to a pharmacist, it may not be uncommon that the physician requests education on lowering cholesterol through both diet and medications and education on weight loss and smoking cessation. All three conditions (CAD, obesity, and tobacco use) can be coded to represent the health conditions discussed. Example ICD-9 codes for these conditions include 414.01 (native-vessel disease), 272.2 (mixed hyperlipidemia), and 305.1 (tobacco-use disorder) (Buck and Lockyear, 2007). The specific ICD-9 code used on the claim form should be the same code used by the physician to decrease the risk of claim rejection owing to mismatched codes. Therefore, the ICD-9 code should be requested on the referral form from the physician (Snella et ah, 2004). 

The referral form also includes check boxes for the physician to mark the appropriate ICD-9-CM codes. For diabetes education, he includes the common ICD-9 codes 250.00 (i.e., uncomplicated type 2 diabetes, controlled), 250.02 (i.e., uncomplicated type 2 diabetes, uncontrolled), and an Other field with room for the physician to add a more specific code (Buck and Lockyear, 2007). For the hyperlipidemia component, he has also included the common codes used to describe these conditions. Within the referral form is the statement of medical necessity and contact information for the physician and patients to reach the pharmacy to make appointments. Although Dr. Brouchard likes the form that he has created, he plans on revising the form based on his experience and input from the physicians office after a few months of use. He wants to make sure that the referral form is as easy to use as possible and that it contains most of the information he needs to submit claims successfully. 

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