Gastroenterology Coding Alert

Question: An established Medicare patient with a plan of care in place for his gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) suffers acute myocardial infarction (MI) and is hospitalized. A cardiologist is overseeing the patient's MI care, but the gastroenterologist continues to see the patient while he's in the hospital to manage his GERD. Yesterday, the gastroenterologist performed a level-two hospital E/M for the patient just after the cardiologist had finished his visit with the patient for ongoing care of the MI. Are there going to be problems when we code for services, since another physician provided the patient with care on the same day? Connecticut Subscriber Answer: In this case, each physician is treating a separate patient problem, so you should be able to code concurrently without any problems -- just get your diagnoses correct. It is vital that each physician provide diagnosis codes to explain the exact patient problem he is treating. [...]