Wiki Newborn well visits

[KERRIEA]

I have noticed several postings on this issue, some without a response given and others posting answers which conflict with other responses. Can someone who has lots of coding experience in pediatrics help with this?? This is becoming a problem in our office as some of our payers (BCBS is one) are now denying hosptial newborn charges for subsequent healthy baby visits when the V3X codes are used. Per ICD-9 a code from this series is assigned as a principal DX and assigned only once to a newborn at the time of birth. So this sounds like we are NOT supposed to use this code on subsequent hospital visits. If the baby is healthy but still in the hospital, can we/should we use the V20.31 code? Also, does anyone know if these visits with the V20.31 DX counts towards the maximum number of well visits allowed per year? And if the answer is yes, what should we do???

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help with this!!!

 

[kellycz1]

I code for Peds and have been for 10 yrs and the codes V20.31 and V20.32 is for after the baby has been discharged from the hospital. For the subsequent visits you are to be using that V30.00 and V30.01....Hope this helps