Wiki Observation

[sknirs@yahoo]

We had a patient who was in observation for 72 hours, admitted to observation on Friday, had a subsequent visit on Saturday and was discharged from observation on Sunday. We have coded 99219 for the initial observation care and 99217 for the discharge. Is there another code for the visit on Saturday?

 

[RebeccaWoodward*]

In the rare circumstance when a patient is held in observation status for more than 2 calendar dates, the physician shall bill a visit furnished before the discharge date using the outpatient/office visit codes. The physician may not use the subsequent hospital care codes since the patient is not an inpatient of the hospital

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf

30.6.8

 

[rwood]

A class I went to last year the teacher said you could use 99212-99215 to bill for the 2nd day observation.

 

[Lisa Bledsoe]

That is correct. 99212-99215 are the options.