Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

These tips help you identify higher paying critical care versus emergency department E/M codes. If you fail to identify critical care documentation in encounters involving ventilation management, you could cut more than $130 from the claim. Check out this expert advice on deciding whether you should report the service with an E/M code or one of the specific ventilation codes. Rely on 94002 For Initial Day As more ED groups venture into engagements to provide hospitalist coverage, coding smarts for ventilation management are becoming vital. When encounter notes indicate that the ED physician focused solely on mechanical ventilation services, you should choose from the following codes, confirms Steve Verno, NREMTP, CMBSI: • 94002 -- Ventilation assist and management, initiation of pressure or volume preset ventilators for assisted or controlled breathing; hospital/inpatient observation, initial day • 94003 -- ... hospital inpatient/observation, each subsequent day. Key: Report ventilator management "when the purpose of the [...]