tci Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement - 2009 Issue 6

OBSERVATION CODING: Observation Stays Are on the Rise -- 4 Tips Help Code Them

Hint: Roll office visit, observation stay into one code. Physicians are admitting more patients than ever to observation status -- so Medicare analysts will be scrutinizing these claims like never before. Many hospitals have tightened the criteria of what constitutes an inpatient stay -- causing some patients to linger in observation care for longer than the average period --in some cases up to two weeks, according to a Dec.11, 2008 notice from the Center for Medicare Advocacy. As hospital policymakers set standards regarding which patients qualify for observation care and which should be inpatients, Part B coders need...

To read the full article, sign in and subscribe to tci Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement.


Keep pace with evolving Medicare regulations — and onboard your team — with timely analysis of critical updates interpreted in an easy-to-follow, easy-to-apply format. Your subscription to TCI's Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement Alert will equip you to navigate code and guideline changes, CCI edits, and revisions to modifiers, payer policies, the fee schedule, OIG target areas, and more.

  • Current newsletters added each month
  • Fully searchable archives - over 4200 articles
  • ALL years/issues back to 2003 organized by year and issue
  • Codes mentioned in articles are linked to Code Information pages
  • Code Information pages link back to related articles
Access to this feature is available in the following products:
  • tci Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement +Archives

demo
request yours today
 subscribe
start today
 newsletter
free subscription

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