Medical Billing question and answer
Can CPT 99213 be billed with 96372
Ans : No. It will not be paid.
Solution : We have to file with 20553 or any other injection code along with modifier 25 for 99213
Note : 90772 changed to 96372 for 2009
Can 99291 be billed on a UB 04
Ans : Yes. You can billed on UB 04 form
Solution : UB04 form should be use for facility code 14, 24……
If critical care codes 99291 and 99292 services billed in conjunction with admit type 1. Hospitals are required to use HCPCS code 99291 to report outpatient encounters in which critical care services are furnished. The hospital is required to use HCPCS code 99291 in place of, but not in addition to, a code for a medical visit or for an emergency department service.
Can 99395 be reimbursed
Ans : 99395 will not be separately reimbursed when submitted with CPT 90772. If the Preventative Maintenance code is billed in any other combination if E&M codes, it will not be payable.
Note :99395 when used for EPSDT services, will be reimbursed at 60% of the Medicare non-facility rate when the recipient is agae 21 or older.
99395 when used not for EPSDT, will be reimbursed at 74% of the Medicare non-facility rate when the recipeint is age 21 or older.
EPSDT CPT codes well-child visits STAGE (Age) NEW PATIENT CPT CODE ESTABLISHED PATIENT CPT CODE
INFANCY (Prenatal – 9 months) 99381 99391
EARLY CHILDHOOD (12 months – 4 years) 99382 99392
MIDDLE CHILDHOOD (5 years – 10 years) 99383 99393
ADOLESCENCE STAGE 1 (11 years – 17 years) 99384 99394
ADOLESCENCE STAGE 2 (18 years – 21 years) 99385 99395 EPSDT
EPSDT is a federally required Medicaid benefit for individuals under the age of 21 years that expands coverage for children and adolescents beyond adult limits to ensure availability of 1) screening and diagnostic services to determine physical or mental defects and 2) health care, treatment, and other measures to correct or ameliorate any defects and chronic conditions discovered [42 CFR §440.40(b)]. EPSDT requirements help to ensure access to all medically necessary health services within the federal definition of “medical assistance”.
Annual wellness with STI screening: For Annual wellness with STI w screening use the following CPT Codes: Adult preventive care visits New patient
CPT Code 99385: Initial Preventive Medicine New Patient age 18-39 years
CPT Code 99386: Initial Preventive Medicine New Patient age 40-64 years
CPT Code 99387: Initial Preventive Medicine New Patient age 65 years & older Established patient
CPT Code 99395: Periodic Preventive Medicine Established Patient 18-39 years
CPT Code 99396: Periodic Preventive Medicine Established Patient 40-64 years
CPT Code 99397: Periodic Preventive Medicine Established Patient 65 years & older
Critical Care Visits and Neonatal Intensive Care (Codes 99291 – 99292)
CRITICAL CARE SERVICES (CODES 99291-99292)
A.Use of Critical Care Codes
Pay for services reported with CPT codes 99291 and 99292 when all the criteria for critical care and critical care services are met. Critical care is defined as the direct delivery by a physician(s) medical care for a critically ill or critically injured patient. A critical illness or injury acutely impairs one or more vital organ systems such that there is a high probability of imminent or life threatening deterioration in the patient’s condition.
Critical care involves high complexity decision making to assess, manipulate, and support vital system functions(s) to treat single or multiple vital organ system failure and/or to prevent further life threatening deterioration of the patient’s condition.
Examples of vital organ system failure include, but are not limited to: central nervous system failure, circulatory failure, shock, renal, hepatic, metabolic, and/or respiratory failure. Although critical care typically requires interpretation of multiple physiologic parameters and/or application of advanced technology(s), critical care may be provided in life threatening situations when these elements are not present.
Providing medical care to a critically ill, injured, or post-operative patient qualifies as a critical care service only if both the illness or injury and the treatment being provided meet the above requirements.
Critical care is usually, but not always, given in a critical care area such as a coronary care unit, intensive care unit, respiratory care unit, or the emergency department.
However, payment may be made for critical care services provided in any location as long as the care provided meets the definition of critical care.
Consult the American Medical Association (AMA) CPT Manual for the applicable codes and guidance for critical care services provided to neonates, infants and children.
B.Critical Care Services and Medical Necessity
Critical care services must be medically necessary and reasonable. Services provided that do not meet critical care services or services provided for a patient who is not critically ill or injured in accordance with the above definitions and criteria but who happens to be in a critical care, intensive care, or other specialized care unit should be reported using another appropriate E/M code (e.g., subsequent hospital care, CPT codes 99231 – 99233).
As described in Section A, critical care services encompass both treatment of “vital organ failure” and “prevention of further life threatening deterioration of the patient’s condition.” Therefore, although critical care may be delivered in a moment of crisis or upon being called to the patient’s bedside emergently, this is not a requirement for providing critical care service. The treatment and management of the patient’s condition, while not necessarily emergent, shall be required, based on the threat of imminent deterioration (i.e., the patient shall be critically ill or injured at the time of the physician’s visit).
Chronic Illness and Critical Care:
Examples of patients whose medical condition may not warrant critical care services:
1.Daily management of a patient on chronic ventilator therapy does not meet the criteria for critical care unless the critical care is separately identifiable from the chronic long term management of the ventilator dependence.
2.Management of dialysis or care related to dialysis for a patient receiving ESRD hemodialysis does not meet the criteria for critical care unless the critical care is separately identifiable from the chronic long term management of the dialysis dependence (refer to Chapter 8, §160.4). When a separately identifiable condition (e.g., management of seizures or pericardial tamponade related to renal failure) is being managed, it may be billed as critical care if critical care requirements are met. Modifier –25 should be appended to the critical care code when applicable in this situation.
Examples of patients whose medical condition may warrant critical care services:
1.An 81 year old male patient is admitted to the intensive care unit following abdominal aortic aneurysm resection. Two days after surgery he requires fluids and pressors to maintain adequate perfusion and arterial pressures. He remains ventilator dependent.
2.A 67 year old female patient is 3 days status post mitral valve repair. She develops petechiae, hypotension and hypoxia requiring respiratory and circulatory support.
3.A 70 year old admitted for right lower lobe pneumococcal pneumonia with a history of COPD becomes hypoxic and hypotensive 2 days after admission.
4.A 68 year old admitted for an acute anterior wall myocardial infarction continues to have symptomatic ventricular tachycardia that is marginally responsive to antiarrhythmic therapy.
Examples of patients who may not satisfy Medicare medical necessity criteria, or do not meet critical care criteria or who do not have a critical care illness or injury and therefore not eligible for critical care payment:
1.Patients admitted to a critical care unit because no other hospital beds were available;
2.Patients admitted to a critical care unit for close nursing observation and/or frequent monitoring of vital signs (e.g., drug toxicity or overdose); and
3.Patients admitted to a critical care unit because hospital rules require certain treatments (e.g., insulin infusions) to be administered in the critical care unit.
Providing medical care to a critically ill patient should not be automatically deemed to be a critical care service for the sole reason that the patient is critically ill or injured. While more than one physician may provide critical care services to a patient during the critical care episode of an illness or injury each physician must be managing one or more critical illness(es) or injury(ies) in whole or in part.
EXAMPLE: A dermatologist evaluates and treats a rash on an ICU patient who is maintained on a ventilator and nitroglycerine infusion that are being managed by an intensivist. The dermatologist should not report a service for critical care.
C.Critical Care Services and Full Attention of the Physician
The duration of critical care services to be reported is the time the physician spent evaluating, providing care and managing the critically ill or injured patient’s care. That time must be spent at the immediate bedside or elsewhere on the floor or unit so long as the physician is immediately available to the patient.
For example, time spent reviewing laboratory test results or discussing the critically ill patient’s care with other medical staff in the unit or at the nursing station on the floor may be reported as critical care, even when it does not occur at the bedside, if this time represents the physician’s full attention to the management of the critically ill/injured patient.
For any given period of time spent providing critical care services, the physician must devote his or her full attention to the patient and, therefore, cannot provide services to any other patient during the same period of time.
D.Critical Care Services and Qualified Non-Physician Practitioners (NPP)
Critical care services may be provided by qualified NPPs and reported for payment under the NPP’s National Provider Identifier (NPI) when the services meet the definition and requirements of critical care services in Sections A and B. The provision of critical care services must be within the scope of practice and licensure requirements for the State in which the qualified NPP practices and provides the service(s). Collaboration, physician supervision and billing requirements must also be met. A physician assistant shall meet the general physician supervision requirements.
E.Critical Care Services and Physician Time
Critical care is a time- based service, and for each date and encounter entry, the physician’s progress note(s) shall document the total time that critical care services were provided. More than one physician can provide critical care at another time and be paid if the service meets critical care, is medically necessary and is not duplicative care.
Concurrent care by more than one physician (generally representing different physician specialties) is payable if these requirements are met (refer to the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Pub. 100-02, Chapter 15, §30 for concurrent care policy discussion).
The CPT critical care codes 99291 and 99292 are used to report the total duration of time spent by a physician providing critical care services to a critically ill or critically injured patient, even if the time spent by the physician on that date is not continuous. Non- continuous time for medically necessary critical care services may be aggregated.
Reporting CPT code 99291 is a prerequisite to reporting CPT code 99292. Physicians of the same specialty within the same group practice bill and are paid as though they were a single physician (§30.6.5).
1.Off the Unit/Floor
Time spent in activities (excluding those identified previously in Section C) that occur outside of the unit or off the floor (i.e., telephone calls, whether taken at home, in the office, or elsewhere in the hospital) may not be reported as critical care because the physician is not immediately available to the patient. This time is regarded as pre- and post service work bundled in evaluation and management services.
2.Split/Shared Service
A split/shared E/M service performed by a physician and a qualified NPP of the same group practice (or employed by the same employer) cannot be
reported as a critical care service. Critical care services are reflective of the care and management of a critically ill or critically injured patient by an individual physician or qualified non-physician practitioner for the specified reportable period of time.
Unlike other E/M services where a split/shared service is allowed the critical care service reported shall reflect the evaluation, treatment and management of a patient by an individual physician or qualified non-physician practitioner and shall not be representative of a combined service between a physician and a qualified NPP.
When CPT code time requirements for both 99291 and 99292 and critical care criteria are met for a medically necessary visit by a qualified NPP the service shall be billed using the appropriate individual NPI number.
Medically necessary visit(s) that do not meet these requirements shall be reported as subsequent hospital care services.
3.Unbundled Procedures
Time involved performing procedures that are not bundled into critical care (i.e., billed and paid separately) may not be included and counted toward critical care time. The physician’s progress note(s) in the medical record should document that time involved in the performance of separately billable procedures was not counted toward critical care time.
4.Family Counseling/Discussions
Critical care CPT codes 99291 and 99292 include pre and post service work. Routine daily updates or reports to family members and or surrogates are considered part of this service. However, time involved with family members or other surrogate decision makers, whether to obtain a history or to discuss treatment options (as described in CPT), may be counted toward critical care time when these specific criteria are met:
a)The patient is unable or incompetent to participate in giving a history and/or making treatment decisions, and
b)The discussion is necessary for determining treatment decisions.
For family discussions, the physician should document:
a.The patient is unable or incompetent to participate in giving history and/or making treatment decisions
b.The necessity to have the discussion (e.g., “no other source was available to obtain a history” or “because the patient was
deteriorating so rapidly I needed to immediately discuss treatment options with the family”,
c.Medically necessary treatment decisions for which the discussion was needed, and
d. A summary in the medical record that supports the medical necessity of the discussion
All other family discussions, no matter how lengthy, may not be additionally counted towards critical care. Telephone calls to family members and or surrogate decision-makers may be counted towards critical care time, but only if they meet the same criteria as described in the aforementioned paragraph.
5.Inappropriate Use of Time for Payment of Critical Care Services.
Time involved in activities that do not directly contribute to the treatment of the critically ill or injured patient may not be counted towards the critical care time, even when they are performed in the critical care unit at a patient’s bedside (e.g., review of literature, and teaching sessions with physician residents whether conducted on hospital rounds or in other venues).
F.Hours and Days of Critical Care that May Be Billed
Critical care service is a time-based service provided on an hourly or fraction of an hour basis. Payment should not be restricted to a fixed number of hours, a fixed number of physicians, or a fixed number of days, on a per patient basis, for medically necessary critical care services. Time counted towards critical care services may be continuous or intermittent and aggregated in time increments (e.g., 50 minutes of continuous clock time or (5) 10 minute blocks of time spread over a given calendar date). Only one physician may bill for critical care services during any one single period of time even if more than one physician is providing care to a critically ill patient.
For Medicare Part B physician services paid under the physician fee schedule, critical care is not a service that is paid on a “shift” basis or a “per day” basis. Documentation may be requested for any claim to determine medical necessity. Examples of critical care billing that may require further review could include: claims from several physicians submitting multiple units of critical care for a single patient, and submitting claims for more than 12 hours of critical care time by a physician for one or more patients on the same given calendar date. Physicians assigned to a critical care unit (e.g., hospitalist, intensivist, etc.) may not report critical care for patients based on a ‘per shift” basis.
The CPT code 99291 is used to report the first 30 – 74 minutes of critical care on a given calendar date of service. It should only be used once per calendar date per patient by the
same physician or physician group of the same specialty. CPT code 99292 is used to report additional block(s) of time, of up to 30 minutes each beyond the first 74 minutes of critical care (See table below). Critical care of less than 30 minutes total duration on a given calendar date is not reported separately using the critical care codes. This service should be reported using another appropriate E/M code such as subsequent hospital care.
Clinical Example of Correct Billing of Time:
A patient arrives in the emergency department in cardiac arrest. The emergency department physician provides 40 minutes of critical care services. A cardiologist is called to the ED and assumes responsibility for the patient, providing 35 minutes of critical care services. The patient stabilizes and is transferred to the CCU. In this instance, the ED physician provided 40 minutes of critical care services and reports only the critical care code (CPT code 99291) and not also emergency department services. The cardiologist may report the 35 minutes of critical care services (also CPT code 99291) provided in the ED. Additional critical care services by the cardiologist in the CCU may be reported on the same calendar date using 99292 or another appropriate E/M code depending on the clock time involved.
G.Counting of Units of Critical Care Services
The CPT code 99291 (critical care, first hour) is used to report the services of a physician providing full attention to a critically ill or critically injured patient from 30-74 minutes on a given date. Only one unit of CPT code 99291 may be billed by a physician for a patient on a given date. Physicians of the same specialty within the same group practice bill and are paid as though they were a single physician and would not each report CPT 99291on the same date of service.
The following illustrates the correct reporting of critical care services:
Total Duration of Critical Care Codes
Less than 30 minutes 99232 or 99233 or other appropriate E/M code
30 – 74 minutes 99291 x 1
75 – 104 minutes 99291 x 1 and 99292 x 1
105 – 134 minutes 99291 x1 and 99292 x 2
135 – 164 minutes 99291 x 1 and 99292 x 3
165 – 194 minutes 99291 x 1 and 99292 x 4
194 minutes or longer 99291 – 99292 as appropriate (per the above illustrations)
H.Critical Care Services and Other Evaluation and Management Services Provided on Same Day
When critical care services are required upon the patient’s presentation to the hospital emergency department, only critical care codes 99291 – 99292 may be reported. An emergency department visit code may not also be reported.
When critical care services are provided on a date where an inpatient hospital or office/outpatient evaluation and management service was furnished earlier on the same date at which time the patient did not require critical care, both the critical care and the previous evaluation and management service may be paid. Hospital emergency department services are not payable for the same calendar date as critical care services when provided by the same physician to the same patient.
Physicians are advised to submit documentation to support a claim when critical care is additionally reported on the same calendar date as when other evaluation and management services are provided to a patient by the same physician or physicians of the same specialty in a group practice.
I.Critical Care Services Provided by Physicians in Group Practice(s)
Medically necessary critical care services provided on the same calendar date to the same patient by physicians representing different medical specialties that are not duplicative services are payable. The medical specialists may be from the same group practice or from different group practices.
Critically ill or critically injured patients may require the care of more than one physician medical specialty. Concurrent critical care services provided by each physician must be medically necessary and not provided during the same instance of time. Medical record documentation must support the medical necessity of critical care services provided by each physician (or qualified NPP). Each physician must accurately report the service(s) he/she provided to the patient in accordance with any applicable global surgery rules or concurrent care rules. (Refer to Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, Chapter 12, §40, and the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Pub. 100-02, Chapter 15,
§30.)
CPT Code 99291
The initial critical care time, billed as CPT code 99291, must be met by a single physician or qualified NPP. This may be performed in a single period of time or be cumulative by the same physician on the same calendar date. A history or physical exam performed by one group partner for another group partner in order for the second group partner to make a medical decision would not represent critical care services.
CPT Code 99292
Subsequent critical care visits performed on the same calendar date are reported using CPT code 99292. The service may represent aggregate time met by a single physician or physicians in the same group practice with the same medical specialty in order to meet the duration of minutes required for CPT code 99292. The aggregated critical care visits must be medically necessary and each aggregated visit must meet the definition of critical care in order to combine the times.
Physicians in the same group practice who have the same specialty may not each report CPT initial critical care code 99291 for critical care services to the same patient on the same calendar date. Medicare payment policy states that physicians in the same group practice who are in the same specialty must bill and be paid as though each were the single physician. (Refer to the Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, Chapter 12, §30.6.)
Physician specialty means the self-designated primary specialty by which the physician bills Medicare and is known to the contractor that adjudicates the claims. Physicians in the same group practice who have different medical specialties may bill and be paid without regard to their membership in the same group. For example, if a cardiologist and an endocrinologist are group partners and the critical care services of each are medically necessary and not duplicative, the critical care services may be reported by each regardless of their group practice relationship.
Two or more physicians in the same group practice who have different specialties and who provide critical care to a critically ill or critically injured patient may not in all cases each report the initial critical care code (CPT 99291) on the same date. When the group physicians are providing care that is unique to his/her individual medical specialty and managing at least one of the patient’s critical illness(es) or critical injury(ies) then the initial critical care service may be payable to each.
However, if a physician or qualified NPP within a group provides “staff coverage” or “follow-up” for each other after the first hour of critical care services was provided on the same calendar date by the previous group clinician (physician or qualified NPP), the subsequent visits by the “covering” physician or qualified NPP in the group shall be billed using CPT critical care add-on code 99292. The appropriate individual NPI number shall be reported on the claim. The services will be paid at the specific physician fee schedule rate for the individual clinician (physician or qualified NPP) billing the service.