GNYHA’s Social Determinants of Health (SDH) Workgroup, which provides member hospitals with a forum to discuss strategies and approaches to address patients’ social needs, recently finalized a guidance document on using ICD-10 codes to document SDH-related needs on claims.
The guidance document contains an abridged list of ICD-10 codes that align with common SDH screening questions, social needs, and related priorities in New York State. GNYHA shared the document with the New York State Department of Health’s Bureau of Social Determinants of Health, which will use it to encourage SDH data collection and provide related coding guidance.
GNYHA will continue to convene the SDH Workgroup to focus on engaging physicians in SDH assessments and data collection, and simplifying referrals to community-based organization partners.
GNYHA also will continue several efforts to support its members’ SDH-related efforts. GNYHA will continue its SDH Learning Series this fall with webinars on addressing the social needs of justice-involved individuals. GNYHA has also expanded its Health Information Tool for Empowerment (HITE) to cover Westchester County and surrounding areas. HITE, a free online directory of community resources, has long covered New York City’s five boroughs and Long Island.
GNYHA has been participating in various SDH initiatives to represent member interests and ensure timely communication of SDH-related policies and initiatives. GNYHA recently participated in a National Quality Forum workgroup that developed a set of recommendations for incorporating SDH data into clinical records. GNYHA is also participating in the Gravity Project, a public collaborative that will develop consensus-based recommendations on how to best capture and group data on housing, food insecurity, and transportation needs for interoperable electronic exchange and aggregation.