Discharge is bundled into most observation codes 2 Code Sets Represent Same-Day Discharge If your gastroenterologist performs the procedure on the patient, evaluates him and discharges him on the same calendar day, you should report only the procedure code and one observation code, Parman says. Before deciding on the code set to use, determine how long the patient stayed in observation. However, when a patient is admitted to observation or inpatient hospital care for more than eight hours and is then discharged on the same day, report a code from the 99234-99236 family. If the patient has to be kept overnight for observation and then discharged the next day, the coding guidelines change for the E/M services.
If your gastroenterologist performs a procedure in a hospital and then keeps the patient for observation, the hospital evaluation and management (E/M) codes you report will depend on the length of patient stay. Sometimes, you can report the discharge separately from the admission.
The basics: In most instances, you can report only one E/M service a day, so you cannot bill for the hospital discharge if it happened the same day as the hospital admit, says Cindy Parman, CPC, CPC-H, RCC, president of the AAPC National Advisory Board and co-owner of Coding Strategies Inc. in Dallas, Ga.
If the patient is admitted for fewer than eight hours and is then discharged on the same day, you should select a code from the 99218-99220 group to report the admission.
Example: A patient reports to the hospital for an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). During the procedure, the gastroenterologist also uses the endoscope to remove calculi from the pancreatic ducts.
After the procedure, the patient is hypotensive and complaining of pain. The patient is admitted to observation at 10 a.m., after the gastroenterologist performs the ERCP, and has the patient discharged at 5 that afternoon when further evaluation shows the patient to be improved and stable. During the patient's stay, the physician provides level-two observation service.
In this instance, you should:
Example: A patient reports for an ERCP with pressure measurement of the sphincter. He is admitted at 8 a.m. after the gastroenterologist performs the ERCP, and discharges the patient at 10 that night. During the patient's stay, the gastroenterologist provides level-two observation service.
In this instance, you should:
For the day of admission, you would report a code from the 99218-99220 group, and for the day of discharge, you'd use 99217, Parman says.
Example: A patient reports to the hospital for a colonoscopy with ultrasound and fine needle aspiration. He is admitted at 11 a.m. after the gastroenterologist performs the colonoscopy because of a concern about postprocedure perforation. He discharges the patient at 9 the next morning. During the patient's stay, the gastroenterologist provides level-three E/M service, and the discharge service takes 20 minutes.
In this instance, you should: