Wiki Observation coding

[bbeatty]

I work for a specialist office. We were consulted on a patient who had been admitted as an observation patient. We consulted on one day and then saw her the next day as well. Please tell me which codes to use. Do I use a consult code (99244) for the first visit and a subsequent hosp code for the next day or do I use an initial observation code for the first visit even though we were not the supervising physician? This was a UPMC patient.

 

[amsmith]

Obs

Only the admitting MD bills the observation codes...

 

[dclark7]

As long as the patient is not medicare you would use the OP Consult code (99244) for the initial visit and codes from range 99211-99215 for the subsequent visit. If the patient is medicare you can use 99201-99204 if a new patient for the initial visit. If the patient is an established patient then you would just use codes from 99211-99215 for both days.

Doreen, CPC