Wiki Consult/Admit same day

[mmagness]

Below is a question from one of our physicians:

"If a doctor sees a patient in consultation at an outlying hospital and the patient is transferred to another hospital can a new doctor (from the same practice) bill an admission HP code the same day as the other doctor who billed for a consultation at the outlying hospital? I didn't think they could but would like clarification. What code can they bill for seeing the patient, examining them and writing orders?"


I was leaning torward a 99231-99233 series code but wanted to double check. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
MM

 

[Karolina]

If both doctors are from the same practice, same specialty they are considered the same. In that case all services provided by both should be worked into the admission, since you can bill only one E/M charge per day/provider.

 

[mmagness]

When I put the 99254 and the 99232 into code correct it appears that these two codes do not hit any edits... Both doctors are from the same group- same speciality.

We are not not planning on billing an admit due to the admit was done at the other hospital and then one of our physicians was consulted and from there and the patient was transferred to a better equiped hospital. Once the patient was traferred to the other hospital (same day) another physician in our practice evaluated the patient and wrote orders etc. Shouldn't this doctor get credit for the services that he provided? If so, what/how should we bill?

MM