Examine potential coding issues in case studies and consider the medicolegal responsibilities of the advanced practice nurse.
QUESTION:
As an advanced practice nurse (APN), it is essential to understand your medicolegal responsibilities as they relate to coding the services you provide to patients. Improper coding, undercoding, or overcoding can have serious implications for patients, providers, and the provider’s care setting. For this Discussion, you examine potential coding issues in case studies and consider the medicolegal responsibilities of the advanced practice nurse.
To prepare:
Select one of the provided case studies.
Review the patient documentation given for the case. Think about medicolegal considerations and the responsibilities of the advanced practice nurse.
Consider the medical codes selected by the advanced practice nurse. Reflect on how the selections might impact clinical practice and billing. Think about how the impact might differ from primary to acute care settings.
By Day 3
Post a brief description of the patient documentation given for the case study you selected. Explain any medicolegal considerations, including the role and responsibilities of the advanced practice nurse. Then, explain how medical coding might impact clinical practice and billing, as well as how implications might differ from primary to acute care settings.
Case Study 1:
Sally Jones, an acute care advanced practice nurse, is making hospital rounds on the same patients her colleague nurse practitioner saw yesterday. Sally had five history and physicals to complete on admissions that came in overnight. At the beginning of her shift, she had to complete two emergency admissions and was then called to intensive care, where she spent most of the afternoon. She had to leave work early because of her husband’s retirement party. Because she knew most of the patients on her rounding list, she decided to visit each patient’s room quickly for about 10 minutes. She coded all of the visits the same way she had done the day before, with codes 99231 and 99232.
ANSWER:
Introduction:
It is no secret that Evaluation and Management (E/M) miscoding and claims have been causing a major problems for the medical industry over the past several years. According to the Department of Health and Human services, there were about $6.7 billion inappropriately pain in 2010, that amounted to 21% of Medicare payments and a staggering 42% of incorrectly coded claims. Medical coding is the transformation of healthcare diagnosis, procedures, medical services and equipment into universal medical alphanumeric codes. The diagnoses and procedure codes are taken from medical record documentation, such as transcription of physician’s notes, laboratory, and radiologic results, etc. Subsequent hospital care CPT codes 99231 and 99232, respectively, require “a problem focused interval history” and “an expanded problem focused interval history. 99231 has a problem focused history, a problem focused exam and a straight forward MDM or Medical Decision Making (or of low complexity). 99231 requires documentation to support that the patient is stable, recovering, or improving. On the other hand, 99232 CPT code requires documentation to support that the patient is responding inadequately to therapy or has developed a minor complication. Such minor complications might include careful monitoring of co-morbid conditions requiring continuous active management (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (n.d.-a).
Description of Patient Documentation in Case Study 1
In the scenario, Sally Jones should have assessed and focused well on patient’s problem and history. Even though Sally knew the patients and saw them the other day, she should not coded all her patients the way she had done the day before. She did not see the patients for two days. The patients might have improved or not, might be recovered or developed minor complications. CPT codes 99231 and 99232 are totally different. If the exam is focused on history problem and the medical decision making is straight forward or low complexity, the code used is 99231. And if the exam is focused on expanded problem and the medical decision making is moderate complexity, then it coded as 99232 (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (n.d.-a).
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