grepay
Contributor
One of our providers is insisting that once morphine is started for his newborns on NAS monitoring, the intensive care codes (99477, 99478-99480) are appropriate. While I agree intensive observation and frequent monitoring with the adjustment of morphine does fit part of the definition of these codes, I don't feel other criteria for intensive services are utilized. These baby's are on room air and taking nutrition orally. I have been using 99233 for these services until the babies are described as stable NAS scores with weaningat which point I switch to 99232. I cannot find any information from official sources such as CMS, AAPC, AMA, etc. Can anyone here direct me to a source that addresses NAS score coding for newborns?