Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

Answer: Yes, care following a cesarean is still considered postpartum care. You apparently are using 99024 for internal purposes so that you know the outcome/reason for an encounter with the patient following the cesarean. There would be no reason to submit this code to the insurance carrier unless it has instructed you to do so. You might want to recreate some internal codes for tracking purposes that deal with the type of visit. For example, you could assign 99026 (not currently a CPT code) for postpartum care following cesarean delivery and 99027 (also not a CPT code) for postpartum care following vaginal birth.

The ICD-9 code would be V24.2 (routine postpartum follow-up). In fact, you also might want to consider creating a third code to track routine antepartum visits, especially because at some point you might be able to bill for extra visits that are outside the global package (i.e., more than 13 visits for complications of pregnancy). You might also want to differentiate between visits that are unrelated to pregnancy (e.g., treatment for flu, UTI, etc.) that should be billed when they occur separately from ones that are part of the global care.