Pediatric Coding Alert

Looser guidelines will let you count work spread over days. Groaning thinking of all the time you'll never capture for complex cases requiring extensive pre-visit services? CPT 2010 brings you hope. Guideline revisions "liberalize prolonged non-face-toface services codes," reports Richard Tuck, MD, FAAP, pediatrician at PrimeCare of Southeastern Ohio in Zanesville. "This CPT change is a really good one." Think 99358, +99359 on Non-E/M Day For 2010, you can count indirect prolonged service time that occurs around the date of the E/M service. "Under the old definition, the non-face-to-face service had to be the day of the E/M," Tuck explains. Be careful: Prolonged service codes 99358 (Prolonged evaluation and management service before and/or after direct [face-to-face] patient care; first hour) and +99359 (... each additional 30 minutes [List separately in addition to code for prolonged physician service]) still have to relate to an E/M service that involves face-to-face patient contact. [...]