Wiki Billing Critical Care

[jdibble]

My Hospitalists asked a question about billing both CC and Discharge, so I would just like a clearer answer on this...

Can you bill both CC and a discharge in a case where the patient was seen by the Hospitalist for CC during the day and then later the decision to transfer the patient to another facility has been made and the hospitalists discharges the patient. The hospitialist has provided the CC and has documented this and then writes a discharge summary for the discharge. Are these both billable? And if not, wouldn't we charge for the critical care rather than the discharge - since most of the work the physician provided was for the CC of the patient?

Also, to clarify another question - if a patient is being admitted to ICU and is already in a critical state, would the doctor do an H&P for the admit and then a CC note for the care above the admit and bill both those codes?

Thanks for the help to clarify this for me!

 

[FTessaBartels]

Critical Care

In both cases you present, I would just code critical care.

F Tessa Bartels, CPC, CEMC

 

[jdibble]

Thanks Tessa - you are always so helpful!