Hospital Consults

I know that there are no more consults as of 2010, but I have to ask a question regarding an est pt in the hosptial...

If someone was admitted to the hospital under GI services, GI requests us (Hem/Onc docs) to see them because they have severe anemia and we get there and the pt is already an est pt of ours, can we still bill this as a consult?

Being we were asked to see the pt and because it was an inital visit by our service?

2010

There is no "new" or "established" designation in hospital encounters. It is either the initial encounter or the subsequent encounter. Private payors may designate otherwise but that is their call.
If you see a patient on initial encounter in hospital, it can be billed with 99221-99223 based on medical necessity diagnoses (Medicare).

Remember!!!

This is Medicare only; commercial insurers should still honor Consultation codes, for now. And to be clear- the doctors are still performing a consultation they are just billing it differently.

Medicare consults

I know I can't bill Medicare consults for hospital patients, but what about patients in the office? Do we have to charge the new patient code accordingly or can we charge an office consult? Is it just the hospital consults we aren't able to bill? Thanks as usual.

P.S. I did try to look this up but didn't find anything on the board.

Medicare consults

If you put the word "update" in the search box, you'll find the article.

In the office: new or established patient.

Thank you

Thank you for the answer and thank you for telling me how to get to the discussions.

office

If you have not seen the patient, it will be a new patient code. Medicare will not recognize 99241-99255 in 2010.