how to bill when is hospital under observation then admitted two days later

[eaganl2109]

how do we charge when a patient is admitted to the hospital under observation for two days then two days later admitted as an inpatient? do we go back change the observation code to an inpatient code? i would appreciate any insight. liana eagan, cfpc

 

[rnrray2005]

The way that I am reading the guidelines for observation status and then inpatient admission would be that you would bill the observation using initial and subsequent observation codes then bill the admission as initial hospital care
"For a patient admited to the hospital on a date subsequent to the date of observation status the hospital admission would be reported with the appropriate initial hospital care code (99221-99223)"

 

[LouiseR1]

Just make sure that his or her documentation is sufficient enough to bill the Inital hospital codes. Most times if on a subsequent day, the history or the physical isnt as detailed as required to bill those codes.

Louise