Wiki critical care and d/c same date

[jennyjlm]

If a patient is seen for a critical care earlier in the day then passes away later in the day can a critical care and a discharge be billed on the same day?

 

[dadhich.girish]

If the critical care is provided in ED setting, DC is not codeable. If it's inpatient or observation, there are codes for them.

 

[OCD_coder]

We can only assume the patient was OBS or Inpatient - it would be really hard to defend as the time for the D/C would be added to the total critical care time and coded together. Critical Care does not have to run consecutively - it can be added up for the DOS.

You have to consider it equal to billing CC early in the day and then doing a subsequent service later that day. That is not billable.

But is is correct if rounding was done at the start of the day and if the patient goes critical later in the day. Both could be billed separately with a mod-25 added to the critical care.