Wiki Outpatient Discharge

[CARRIESA37]

Hello All, I am wondering if anyone can help me, I work for an outpatient mental health facility, and one of my Psychiatrists will be discharging some patients from her service and we are wondering how we code this? Is there a CPT code for office discharges? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Carrie

 

[thomas7331]

There is no specific code for office discharge - since a patient is never 'admitted' to an office, there can't really be a 'discharge'. You would just need to code from the documentation of the services performed at that encounter. If the provider is spending time arranging for a transition of care to another provider or facility, for example, that can be considered coordination of care, which is considered a component of an E/M service.

 

[CARRIESA37]

There is no specific code for office discharge - since a patient is never 'admitted' to an office, there can't really be a 'discharge'. You would just need to code from the documentation of the services performed at that encounter. If the provider is spending time arranging for a transition of care to another provider or facility, for example, that can be considered coordination of care, which is considered a component of an E/M service.

Thank you, I was leaning that way, and will tell my provider to follow her E/M rules if transferring care.