tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2006 Issue 12

Watch POS Requirements With 99217-99220 and 99234-99236

State law may govern whether a patient is -in- or -out- Although the wrong place-of-service (POS) code can spell denials and delays in getting paid for your observation services, choosing the right POS code should be pretty straightforward, experts say. General guideline: You should use POS 22 (Outpatient hospital) only for observation codes 99217 (Observation care discharge day management -) and 99218-99220 (Initial observation care, per day -), says Lisa Center, CPC, physician billing certified professional coder with Mt. Carmel Regional Medical Center in Pittsburg, Kan. -These codes are observation codes: the patient has not been admitted to the...

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

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