Association of social determinants of health diagnosis codes with overall survival in Medicare-insured patients with cancer

SDOH Z-codes are rarely submitted with billing claims for Medicare patients with cancer. Whether Z-codes reflect the social needs of patients with cancer remains unclear. With current coding, any SDOH Z-code is associated with poor survival in these patients, but individual Z-codes are not consistently associated with survival. Further studies should determine whether SDOH Z-codes enable effective risk adjustment in a value-based healthcare system.