Social Determinants of Health ICD-10 Code Use in Inpatient Pediatrics

The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses screening for social determinants of health (SDOH) and providing families resources for unmet needs. A systematic response to unmet needs requires identification, documentation, and provision of resources. Our goal was to compare SDOH International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10), code use for pediatric inpatients after policy changes in 2018 permitting coding by nonphysicians.

We conducted a retrospective cohort study comparing data from the 2016 and 2019 Kid's Inpatient Database for patients <21 years old. The primary variable was the presence of an SDOH code, defined as an ICD-10 Z-code (Z55-Z65) or 1 of 13 ICD-10 codes recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. We compared overall SDOH code usage between 2016 and 2019, and by Z-code category, demographic, clinical, and hospital characteristics using χ2 tests and odds ratios. Using logistic regression, we examined hospital-level characteristics for hospitals with >5% of discharges with an SDOH code.

SDOH code documentation increased from 1.4% in 2016 to 1.9% in 2019 (P < .001), with no notable differences based on Z-code category. In both periods, SDOH code documentation was more common in adolescents, Native Americans, and patients with mental health diagnoses. The number of all hospitals using any SDOH code increased nearly 8% between 2016 and 2019.

ICD-10 codes remain underused to track SDOH needs within the inpatient pediatric setting. Future research should explore whether SDOH code documentation is associated with increased response to unmet social needs and, if so, how to improve use of SDOH codes by all providers.