Q&A: New financial insecurity ICD-10-CM codes

Q: Can you explain the expanded ICD-10-CM codes, effective October 1, 2025, that identify financial insecurity?

A: Z59.861 gives coders the ability to specifically assign a code that tells us the patient has financial insecurity with difficulty paying for their utilities.

Other specified financial insecurity, Z59.868, is just a “not elsewhere classified “or “other specified” code.

And if the patient just says “financial insecurity” and we're not sure in relation to what and there's no detail that we can parse out there, then we would call that unspecified financial security, Z59.869.

Remember when you’re assigning codes for social determinants of health to assign as many codes as are necessary to describe all of the risk factors, social problems, and conditions that are documented in the current episode of care. So, as long as it's present and providers can show that it's impacting the patient's rehab prognosis and care. The code assignment can be based on medical record documentation from clinicians that are involved in the care who are not the provider. So, if the clinician documents that the patient is having difficulty paying for utilities and is choosing between their medications and their utilities due to lack of funds, we can code it based on that alone.

Editor’s note: This Q&A originally appeared in JustCoding. This question was answered by Brandi Whitemyer, RN, CDIP, COS-C, HCS-D, during the DecisionHealth webinar, “2026 ICD-10 Code Changes: Get Tips for Correct Code Use!”