• Potential pitfall in Medicare billing: office visits billed for hospital inpatients

    This week, we conclude our series (see previous posts here, here, and here) on how to avoid common Medicare billing errors by focusing on billing the wrong kind of evaluation and management (E/M) code for patient visits provided in a hospital inpatient setting.

    If you are rendering an E/M service to a patient in an inpatient hospital setting, then you should typically report that service with a CPT code from one of the following families:

    •    99221-99223 – Initial hospital care
    •    99231-99233 – Subsequent hospital care
    •    99238-99239 – Hospital discharge services

    Unfortunately, Medicare contractors are finding that physicians sometimes use a CPT code from the 99201-99215 family (Office or other outpatient services) for encounters with hospital inpatients. The example given is an 80-year-old female admitted to a hospital for an inpatient level of care on Oct. 17 and discharged on Oct. 20. A physician billed CPT code 99205 (Office or other outpatient visit for the evaluation and management of a new patient) for the date of service of Oct. 18. Because Oct. 18 was during the inpatient hospital stay and the patient was not on a leave-of-absence from the hospital on that date, the contractor deemed the service an overpayment.

    So, if you are billing E/M services for a patient in an inpatient hospital setting, then you need to use hospital visit codes to report those services and avoid office/outpatient visit codes for dates of service corresponding to the patient’s hospital stay.

    For additional information, check out Medicare’s Evaluation and Management Services Guide and sections 30.6.9.1, 30.6.9.2, and 30.6.10 of chapter 12 of the Medicare Claims Processing Manual.

    – Kent Moore, Senior Strategist for Physician Payment for the American Academy of Family Physicians

    Posted on Jun 17, 2014 by David Twiddy


    Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions and views of the American Academy of Family Physicians. This blog is not intended to provide medical, financial, or legal advice. Some payers may not agree with the advice given. This is not a substitute for current CPT and ICD-9 manuals and payer policies. All comments are moderated and will be removed if they violate our Terms of Use.