Wiki Need clarification on 99217

[sirisha]

Doctor is doing a left heart cath 7/13 as an Outpatient. He dictated and asked me to code a discharge for 7/14. I could not find the cpt code for outpatient discharge .

He did not admit the patient for observation or change the patient to inpatient status.

I am just making sure there isn't a code that I am missing...99217 specifies that the doctor has to have them admitted for observation correct?

Can we code 99217 separately for discharge along with produre on the prior date wiothout any E/M code billed on the prior date.

Will be helpful if anyone can help me in this.

Thanks.

 

[hewitt]

Today's Hospitalist has a great article about this..."Billing discharge services." You should look it up on the Internet. A great follow up article would be "The finer points of billing observation" by them as well.

 

[sirisha]

Thanks for you help.The article was very informative for Discharge services but still my dought has not clarified as the article hasn't mentioned anything about the outpatient discharge.Is that mean i need to bill normal office/outpatient E/M (99201-99205)/(99211-99215) for the outpatient s\discharge summary?.

If you have any more ideas regarding this please share with me.

Thanks

 

[mitchellde]

You are correct in that outpatient services do not have discharge summaries nor are they billed as such. The physician would have to order the patient into observation after the cardiac cath for a valid reason. The observation of a patient post cath is a normal part of the procedure and does not constitute hospital observation services. How long was the patient at the hospital after the cath?