EM Coding Alert

Question: We have a patient who had been in the neonatal intensive care unit since birth and was recently discharged at 15 months of age. The patient’s primary care physician, who saw the patient while she was in the hospital, is going to go to the patient’s home to do the follow-up visits in order to limit the exposure of the patient. How will I code for these visits?

Alabama Subscriber

Answer: You will use the appropriate code from the 99347-99350 (Home visit for the evaluation and management of an established patient, …) range for all of the home visits. When it comes time for the patient’s preventive or well visit, you’ll use a code from 99391-99397 (Periodic comprehensive preventive medicine reevaluation and management of an individual including an age and gender appropriate history, examination, counseling/anticipatory guidance/risk factor reduction interventions, and the ordering of laboratory/ diagnostic procedures, established patient; …) range.