Wiki Discharge concern

[KoBee]

I have a cardiologist who does outpatient procedures for heart ablation 93656, in a outpatient hospital, procedure has 000 global days and then wants to bill a 99238 discharge the following day.

Is this correct or is the discharge technically included even though procedure has 0 global days? help please :/

 

[thomas7331]

If the procedure has 0 global days, then the provider can bill for medically necessary E&M services provided on subsequent days, whether related to the procedure not, without a modifier. A zero day global period only includes services performed on the same day so would not exclude a service performed the next day.

However, billing a 99238 for a discharge is incorrect because this code is to discharge a patient from inpatient status - there is no code to discharge a patient from outpatient services (unless the patient had been admitted to observation status). If the procedure was done as outpatient, and the provider saw the patient the following day, they should bill the appropriate outpatient or observation E&M code for any services performed on the following day, depending on the patient's status.