Wiki OBS Consult and OBS discharge

[anastasia213]

Can you bill a consult in the Observation unit and a discharge from Observation on the same DOS?

Per CPT: 99217: "This code is to be utilized by the physician to report ALL services provided to a patient on discharge from "observation status"..."

I am thinking we cannot.

Stacey

 

[jdibble]

Your question is not clear as to who your provider is, however only the doctor who ordered the patient into Observation would use the observation codes. If your doctor did a consult than I am assuming he was not the admitting doctor and he should be billing with an out patient consult code - unless it is a Medicare patient, than you would bill the outpatient new or established patient codes appropriately. The consulting doctor would not be discharging the patient - the ordering doctor would do that.

If your doctor is the ordering doctor he would not be doing a consult - he would use codes 99234-99236 if the patient is admitted and discharged on the same date of service.

Hope this helps.