tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2005 Issue 5

READER QUESTIONS: Previous Hospital Care May Affect E/M Reporting

Question: A provider insurance representative recommended at an in-house seminar that if our surgeon sees a patient in the hospital, we can still bill that patients as "new patient" if we later see him in the office. But, when one of our surgeons treats a patient in the hospital whom he later sees in our private practice, I've been considering that patient to be "established." Who is correct?New York Subscriber Answer: You are correct. CPT defines a new patient as "one who has not received any professional services from the physician or another physician of the same...

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