Coding Strategy

Test your 2010 consultation coding understanding with these questions.

Consultation coding has every practice on edge this year. Ensure that you’ve got a handle on this complicated coding and billing situation by trying your hand at this question.

Question: When a visit with a Medicare inpatient that would normally have been coded as a consultation does not meet the requirements of an initial inpatient hospital care code, what should you report?

Click ‘read more’ for answer …

Answer: Check With Your MAC for Guidance

When your physician sees a Medicare inpatient and would have used an inpatient consultation code, this year you should report an initial hospital care code (99221- 99223). If the E/M service and documentation do not meet the requirements of an initial inpatient hospital care code, however, your coding will now depend on your Medicare Administrative Contractor’s (MAC) or carrier’s policy.

Problem: The lowest initial hospital care code (99221) requires a detailed history and detailed exam. When your physician’s documentation does not reach this level, there is a question as to what CPT codes you should use.

Option 1: Some MACs/carriers have stated that you should use the subsequent hospital care codes (99231-99233). “Our MAC (Highmark) has actually stated to not use 99499 (Unlisted evaluation and management service) for consultations and to use subsequent care codes,” says Barbara J. Cobuzzi, MBA, CPC, CENTC, CPC-H, CPCP, CPC-I, CHCC, president of CRN Healthcare Solutions, a coding and reimbursement consulting firm in Tinton Falls, N.J., and senior coder and auditor for The Coding Network. She adds that instructions about whether or not to use 99499 seem to be MAC-by-MAC specific right now.

Option 2: Other MACs, however, have instructed practices to use the “Not Otherwise Classified” (NOC) code 99499, says Quinten A. Buechner, MS, MDiv, CPC, ACSFP/ GI/PEDS, PCS, CCP, CMSCS, president of ProActive Consultants in Cumberland, Wis. For example, WPS Medicare states on its Web site: “Many providers have questioned the use of a subsequent care code when the provider does not meet the requirements of an initial care code. Wisconsin Physicians Service (WPS) Medicare advises the use of Not Otherwise Classified (NOC) code 99499 as stated in the Internet-Only Manual (IOM).”

“Check with your contractor,” Buechner advises. “Code 99499 is the correct coding choice by CPT rules.” Some payers, such as Highmark, don’t seem to like that coding, however, so you need to know what code(s) your payers want you to use.

Important: Because five levels of inpatient consults are now billed using only three levels of inpatient E/M visits, some practices are seeking crosswalks that refer them from consult codes to E/M codes. But you should not rely on any such guides as the final word. Instead, when the practitioner performs an E/M service, report the code “that most appropriately describes the level of services provided,” notes MLN Matters article MM6740.

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Reading 44373’s code descriptor is key to getting your G Tube claim right.

Question: The gastroenterologist goes to the hospital to treat a patient that had recently been admitted because his gastrojejunostomy tube had migrated to his stomach. After performing a problem focused interval history and exam, the gastroenterologist decides to perform an EGD to reposition the tube. I cannot find a code for repositioning a G tube; how should I code this scenario?

Answer: Judging by your encounter description, the patient’s percutaneous jejunostomy tube (J tube) slipped and became a percutaneous gastrostomy tube (G tube). On the claim, report the following:

• 44373 (Small intestinal endoscopy, enteroscopy beyond second portion of duodenum, not including ileum; with conversion of percutaneousgastrostomy tube to a percutaneous jejunostomy tube) for the EGD;
• 99231 (Subsequent hospital care, per day, for the evaluation and management of a patient, which requires at least 2 of these 3 key components: a problem focused interval history; a problem focused examination; medical decision making that is straightforward or of low complexity …) for the E/M;
• modifier 25 (Significant, separately identifiable evaluation and management service by the same physician on the same day of the procedure or other service) appended to 99231 to show that the E/M and tube fix were separate services; and
• 536.42 (Disorders of function of stomach; gastrostomy complications; mechanical complication of gastrostomy) appended to 44373 and 99231 to represent the patient’s condition.

Explanation: The descriptor for 44373 might be a bit misleading, but it mentions only “tube conversion.” The tube does not necessarily have to be new.

@ Gastroenterology Coding Alert

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Question: My physician removed a catheter in an outpatient hospital exam room. Should I include this removal as part of the E/M? If E/M is appropriate, will the hospital also report an E/M? And, if so, do the physician and hospital E/M codes need to match?

Answer: You should include simple Foley catheter removal as part of an E/M service. These follow-up visits will often be low-level visits (such as 99212, Office or other outpatient visit …). Inpatient E/M codes would also be appropriate when your physician performs these services in the hospital (for example, 99231, Subsequent hospital care, per day, for the evaluation and management of a patient …).

The hospital sometimes may have the option of whether or not to report an outpatient E/M code for an outpatient ambulatory payment classifications (APC) reimbursement. For example, if the patient has another procedure during the same encounter as the catheter removal, then the hospital would not report its E/M service separately from the other procedure.

In most cases, the physician’s outpatient E/M level will determine the hospital APC and any other outpatient procedure reported on the same day. The 2009 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) final rule states that “while awaiting the development of a national set of facility-specific codes and guidelines, we have advised hospitals that each hospital’s internal guidelines that determine the levels of clinic and emergency department visits to be reported should follow the intent of the CPT code descriptors, in that the guidelines should be designed to reasonably relate the intensity of hospital resources to the different levels of effort represented by the codes.”

Translation: The hospital E/M code choice should reflect the hospital’s resource use, not the physician’s. You  may see a difference in new versus established code choices, as well. For hospitals, “beginning in CY 2009, the meanings of new and established patients pertain to whether or not the patient has been registered as an inpatient or outpatient of the hospital within the past 3 years,” the rule states.

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