tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2004 Issue 2

Reader Question: Report Initial Hospital Care for Admits Only

Question: I was recently called into the hospital to take over the care of a patient when her previous doctor had to leave town unexpectedly. I began my care three days into her eight-day hospital stay. How should I code for my first inpatient visit with her? Illinois Subscriber Answer: CPT states that admitting physicians should use the initial hospital care codes "to report the first hospital inpatient encounter with the patient." For initial inpatient encounters by physicians other than the admitting physician, you should use initial inpatient consultation codes (99251-99255) or subsequent hospital care codes (99231-99233), as...

To read the full article, sign in and subscribe to tci General Surgery Coding Alert.


Leverage vital, to-the-point monthly guidance to boost your reporting accuracy and your coding know-how. We make it convenient for your team to stay informed, compliant, and profitable with a subscription to TCI’s General Surgery Coding Alert.

  • Current newsletters added each month
  • Fully searchable archives - over 2100 articles
  • ALL years/issues back to 1999 organized by year and issue
  • Codes mentioned in articles are linked to Code Information pages
  • Code Information pages link back to related articles

This feature is currently unavailable for online purchase. For more information, please call 801-770-4203 or Contact Us.

demo
request yours today
 subscribe
start today
 newsletter
free subscription

Thank you for choosing Find-A-Code, please Sign In to remove ads.