Eli's Rehab Report
Inpatient Consult, Rehab Admit Same Day
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Answer: You are correct, and should have no problem getting paid for such a bill.
The example in the reader question you referenced was an inpatient subsequent hospital visit (not a consult) and an inpatient rehab facility visit on the same day. This is a different scenario because your physiatrist is performing a true consult, whereas the prior example was a normal subsequent hospital visit. In that example, because the rehab facility is part of the hospital, the subsequent hospital visit in the acute-care hospital and the visit to the hospital rehab unit cannot be billed separately they would more likely be combined into one E/M code.
As we noted in the May issue, when two subsequent hospital visits are performed on the same day, CPT advises that the work from the first visit would be "carried over" to the second code and combined. However, in your case, if the physician is performing a true consultation (request for opinion, review of patient, report back to requesting physician), you should have no problem billing an inpatient consult and an inpatient rehab admission on the same day.
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