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Anesthesia Coding Alert

Reader Question:

Billing for Crossover Days

Published on Sat Sep 01, 2001

Question: How should anesthesia be coded for a procedure that spans two dates of service? The surgery began at 11 p.m. and ended at 1 a.m.

Illinois Subscriber  
Answer: According to Tammy Caldwell, an anesthesia coding team leader with the billing and consulting firm North Colorado Professional Services in Fort Collins, Colo. If your computer system can record "through" times, you can report both the start and end dates with a single entry by documenting the procedure's time going past midnight. For example, if the procedure began on Nov. 1 and ended on Nov. 2, you would report the anesthesia time as 11/01/2001, 2300 hours-0100, 11/02/2001. Most computer programs allow you to do this. If yours doesn't, the entry must be billed by hand.
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