Our Anesthesiologist placed a thoracic epidural preoperatively with the intention of using it for post-op pain control. Per the anesthesia record, it was NOT used during the procedure and was NOT part of the anesthetic for the surgery (bowel resection). Because the patient experienced significant post-op hypotension and did not complain of significant pain for the first several days post-op, the epidural was never used and was discontinued 2 days post operatively because of the patient's continued hypotension. In this case, even though anesthesia saw the patient and wrote daily post-op notes, can we bill for daily management since the epidural was in place but never used? Or can we only bill for initial placement since the intent was to use it for post-op pain control, but it was never used because of the unforeseen patient hypotension?
