Pulmonology Coding Alert

Become a Master of Time With These 2 Critical Care FAQs

Published on Fri Oct 23, 2009

Beware: CPT, CMS differ on 'family discussion' parameters. When the physician treats a patient with a critical illness or injury, coders need to know when to start and stop the critical care clock in order to avoid miscoding. Check out these two FAQs to find out what is part of critical care, what's not and how to correctly count the minutes to ensure the most accurate and profitable 99291-+99292 claims. Q. What Must I Carve Out of Critical Care Time? Be careful when considering critical care minutes. Many services that you might think are part of the 99291 (Critical care, evaluation and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient; first 30-74 minutes) package are actually separately billable procedures, pointed out Caral Edelberg, CPC, CCS-P, CHC, president of Edelberg Compliance Associates in Baton Rouge, La., during her recent presentation at The Coding Institute's multi-specialty conference in Orlando, Fla. (

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