Wiki E&M coding

[michelledeaton@yahoo.com]

I apologize if this sounds elementary but... I took coding classes and graduated a couple years ago. I have been working AR for an EMS billing company until now. I now have an actual AR/Coding job in a derm office.

My question is this. WHY does not every office visit qualify to have an E&M code assigned to it. I notice several visits where there is no E&M code and I can't for the life of me find an answer and I don't remember from school what the reasoning was.

Any and all help would be great!! Thank you.

 

[mhstrauss]

I apologize if this sounds elementary but... I took coding classes and graduated a couple years ago. I have been working AR for an EMS billing company until now. I now have an actual AR/Coding job in a derm office.

My question is this. WHY does not every office visit qualify to have an E&M code assigned to it. I notice several visits where there is no E&M code and I can't for the life of me find an answer and I don't remember from school what the reasoning was.

Any and all help would be great!! Thank you.

Congrats on the coding job!

There could be several reasons for not having an E/M code assigned.

Does he perform surgeries or procedures that have a global period? It's possible that the visits without an E/M are for follow-up of a procedure that was recently performed.

Or was a minor procedure performed on the DOS in question? Minor procedures do include the E/M service relevant to evaluating the patient on that day.

That's just a couple examples I'm coming up with right now. Can you post any scrubbed notes to give more info?

 

[michelledeaton@yahoo.com]

I can not thank you enough for your help. Im hoping as time goes by all the things I learned will come back to me. I dont have ain't specifics at this moment but completely understand. Thanks again!!