Top-Notch Diagnosis Coding Key to Concurrent Care Claims
Published on Tue Apr 28, 2009
$$$ can fly out the door if ICD-9 overlap afflicts claim. Getting the most accurate ICD-9 codes possible for your pulmonologists services will go a long way toward preventing denials when coding for concurrent care.Follow this case study and learn how to ensure that everyone is getting paid for their services. Remember Consult Exception When your pulmonologist provides concurrent care with other specialists for a patient, you must be sure that each physician is treating a separate patient problem. Otherwise, only one physician will get paid, even if each physicians service is medically necessary. Confusion surrounding concurrent care can start when the pulmonologist is treating a hospital inpatient and calls in other physicians for consultation. Consider this example from Jill M. Young, CPC, CEDC, CPC-IM, with Young Medical Consulting LLC in East Lansing, Mich: The pulmonologist is treating a patient with viral pneumonia in the hospital. On Tuesday morning, the [...]