Keep Your Observation Coding In Check

There is nothing worse than finding different coding mistakes. One of the things that you can do in order to keep certain mistakes from showing up is keep your observation coding in check. Although you may think that you know all of the general rules in terms of observation services reporting in the ED, mistakes can still happen. When you are looking to smooth out any of the wrinkles found in your observation coding, you can keep several things in mind.

For starters, it is very important that you do not bill more than once for physicians that are from the same group. This is a situation that calls for a choice of only one. For example, even though you may have two individual physicians, if they are from the same group they cannot both be billed, even if the patient receive observation care from the both of them.

Next up, you are going to really make sure that you document everything possible. When it comes to billing codes 92234-92236, you will want to include all information such as timed physician and nursing notes, the time that it took for treatment status and so on. This is important to show for any evidence that the physician had contact with the patient, took the time to observe him or her, time checking in on the condition and even looking over the diagnostic tests.

After all of this and some other steps to ensure documentation, you should find that you will have less and less in terms of glitches when it comes to all of your observation coding needs.

View all Articles by: Kathryn E, CCS-P - Retired