# Emergency Department Charges?



## Codergirl04 (May 21, 2010)

If a patient presents through the ED and is treated and released codes 99281-99285 are to be billed correct?

What if a patient presents through the ED and is admitted to observation or inpatient status. Codes 99218-99220 (observation) or 99221-99223(initial inpatient) depending on status should be billed by physician first encounter and not the ED charges correct?


----------



## AuntJoyce (May 21, 2010)

*Emergency Department Charges*

Since I don't know the specialty of your doc(s), I will elaborate on both ends:

An emergency room physician will always bill within the codes 99281 - 99285 regardless of whether the patient is treated and released or discharged.  Remember that if the emergency room doc decides that the patient needs to be admitted, he/she will call in the covering physician or the hospitalist service and it will be that physician who actually takes on the admit.

A non-emergency room physician who sees a patient in the emergency room and treats and releases this patient will also bill from the above codes.

A non-emergency room physician who sees a patient in the emergency room and then admits that patient to either observation status or in-patient status will then take that emergency room evaluation and it will become the admit H&P and no code from 99281 - 99285 will be utilized.

Hope this helps,

Joyce


----------

