Proper ED Coding In Your Medical Billing
Proper ED Coding In Your Medical Billing
Porper ED Coding In Your Medical Billing
Make sure your medical billing emergency department visits are not over billed and make sure they are not under billed. In medical billing, you should never claim more money than you are entitled. You should also never give your services away for free. Especially when dealing with emergency department visits, medical billing is of the utmost importance.
When coding for emergency services, you must first look at the physician’s action. Does the visit qualify for a consultation code? Was the patient admitted to the hospital? Was the patient discharged? Did any other physician see the patient prior to your physician. Each one of these elements will make a difference in the way you perform your medical billing.
If your physician merely treated a patient in the emergency room, but did not admit him/her to the hospital, you can use the medical billing codes 99281-99285. These codes are only appropriate for the services your doctor performed, not those of other physicians.
If a patient comes into the emergency room and your doctor admits them into the hospital, the medical billing codes 99221-99223 may be used. Just remember that these are only valid if the patient is actually admitted by your physician.
There is another type of medical billing code used with emergency department physicians: the consultation code. Sometimes surgeons or physicians are called merely to do a consult. The patient may already have been treated, but they need advice from your doctor’s specialty. In this case, it is acceptable to use the outpatient consultation codes 99241-99245 when doing your medical billing.
Use care when billing emergency department visits. It is helpful to use a checklist for ER medical billing. The most important elements in ER medical billing are inpatient/outpatient and consult versus non-consult.
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