Wiki Change in patient status

[cld]

Hope you can help.
Patient admitted to hospital on 8/9 from ER. Not seen by my Dr. till 8-10 early AM, wrote order to admit to OBS. 12 hours later, another Dr. from my group see's him, and changes the patient status to an In-Patient. My question: Do I change the status to Inpt on the first Dr. visit, or just make sure the status is chanaged on the visit done on 8/11? (I know I can't charge for the second Dr. visit on the 10th.)

Thanks,
cld

 

[FTessaBartels]

CPT guidelines

Since CPT tells us that if the patient is admitted to the hospital in the course of an encounter in anoteh site of service (e.g. ... observation status in a hospital ...) I would code only the initial hospital visit, rolling Dr A and Dr B's work into one code 99221-92223 as per documentation. (See CPT 2009 professional edition, page 12, top of 2d column)

Hope that helps.

F Tessa Bartels, CPC, CEMC