I saw this concept popping up in a model i built but it seems to not map to the ingredient Insulins/anywhere and I was wondering if this was a mistake or if there is a reason for this?
Possible vocab error
MPhilofsky
(Melanie Philofsky)
#2
It’s not an error. Unfortunately, some of the HCPCS ‘drug’ codes are not specific enough to map to an ingredient. Your example, “Injection, insulin, per 5 units”, can not be mapped to a specific insulin ingredient as seen here.
RossW
(Ross Williams)
#3
okay that makes sense to me thanks! Does this also explain why it doesnt seem to have any heirarchy? I ask because im trying to remove patients with insulin and my fear is there are some of these codes flating around which dont map either to an ingredient or a classification
MPhilofsky
(Melanie Philofsky)
#4
Correct, only standard concept_ids participate in the Concept Ancestor hierarchies table.
If I had to guess, the folks with this HCPCS insulin code will also have other codes/concept_ids for insulin. Insulin is rarely a one time event. Do you have ordered or dispensed drug data? If yes, check your data to see how often the HCPCS code is present when other insulin concept_ids are not present. I don’t think these HCPCS codes will make much different, but only the data can tell you what’s going on.