General Surgery Coding Alert
Never Bill More Than 1 Unit of 99218-99220 per Stay
The January 2006 General Surgery Coding Alert included a typographical error on page 7, in the answer to reader question -Stick With 99218-99220 for 8 or Fewer Hours.- The article should have stated that you should report one unit of 99211-99215 (Office or other outpatient visit for the evaluation and management of an established patient ...), not 99218-99220, for Friday (keep in mind that the observation unit is technically an outpatient, not an inpatient, place of service).
The next-to-final paragraph of the answer read:
-In a third scenario, the surgeon admits the patient 9 p.m. on Thursday and does not discharge the patient until 9 a.m. on Saturday. In this example, you may report one unit of 99218-99220 for Thursday, one unit of 99218-99220 for Friday, and the discharge (99217) on Saturday.-
You should only report one unit of 99218-99220 per observation stay because these codes are for initial care.
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