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Gastroenterology Coding Alert

Reader Question:

Be Clear About After-Hour Coding Rules

Published on Thu Apr 05, 2012

Question: Our gastroenterologist's office is usually closed at 5:30 p.m. But once a week, we stay open till 8 at night to accommodate walk-ins. Can we bill these patients that come between 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. with after-hour codes?New York SubscriberAnswer: Before you think about after hour codes, you should know that these codes are not recognized by Medicare. So if you are treating Medicare patients, you will only use the usual office visit codes.You can consider using after-hour codes for non-Medicare patients. But you cannot use these codes for the scenario that you have described above. After-hour codes are used if your gastroenterologist sees a patient beyond normal working hours. Since it is a regular practice for your office to work on one particular day till the late hour of 8 p.m., it is still considered as normal working hours as this is routine and not done to [...]
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