ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

Question: Our urgent care center saw a patient who was 8 months old for an upper respiratory infection. Under the 2021 office/outpatient evaluation and management (E/M) guidelines, can a parent be regarded as an independent historian for an infant patient and, if so, does that fulfill the requirements for category 2 in the data element when calculating the level of medical decision making (MDM)?

Indiana Subscriber

Answer: In the CPT^® 2021 guidelines, a parent is given as one of the examples of an independent historian. The guidelines go on to define an independent historian as “an individual … who provides a history in addition to a history provided by the patient who is unable to provide a complete or reliable history (eg, due to developmental stage …) or because a confirmatory history is judged to be necessary.”

In other words, should your urgent care physician determine that the patient either cannot provide a complete, or even a reliable, history due to their age, and has turned to a patient’s parent or guardian to provide that history, either whole or in part, then you can count the testimony of a parent as fulfilling the category 2 requirement when calculating MDM at the limited level, which is used for office/outpatient E/M levels 99203/99213 (Office or other outpatient visit for the evaluation and management of a new/established patient, which requires a medically appropriate history and/or examination and low level of medical decision making …).