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Pulmonology Coding Alert

You Be the Coder:

Observe That Critical Care is Calculated Cumulative of Time Spent

Published on Tue Sep 25, 2012

Question: When two physicians of the same specialty and group practice provide critical care to the same patient on the same day at different times, I add the times for each physician together (as long as one meets the minimum of 30 min) in order to determine what code(s) to bill.I am being told by another coder that you cannot add the two times together unless one of the physicians has spent a minimum of 60 minutes with the patient, and furthermore, that, if the first physician does NOT see the patient for 60 min, a 99291 would be billed for him and a 99292 would be billed for the second physician even if the two times added together do not equal more than 74 minutes.Here is a scenario we both coded:Dr. A 30 min ccDr. B 20 min ccDr. C 25 min ccI coded: 99291 and 99292 (total time [...]
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