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Code 99291 is used for critical care, evaluation, and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient, first 30–74 minutes.1 It is to be reported only once per day per physician or group member of the same specialty.
Code 99292 is for critical care, evaluation, and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient, each additional 30 minutes. It is to be listed separately in addition to the code for primary service.1 Code 99292 is categorized as an add-on code. It must be reported on the same invoice as its primary code, 99291. Multiple units of code 99292 can be reported per day per physician/group.
Despite the increased resources and references for critical care billing, critical care reporting issues persist. Medicare data analysis continues to identify 99291 as high risk for claim payment errors, perpetuating prepayment claim edits for outlier utilization and location discrepancies (i.e., settings other than inpatient hospital, outpatient hospital, or the emergency department). 2,3,4
Bolster your documentation with these three key elements.
Critical Illness, Injury Management
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) define “critical illness or injury” as a condition that 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 (e.g., central nervous system failure; circulatory failure; shock; renal, hepatic, metabolic, and/or respiratory failure).5
Hospitalists providing care to the critically ill patient must perform highly complex decision making and interventions of high intensity that are required to prevent the patient’s inevitable decline. CMS further elaborates that “the patient shall be critically ill or injured at the time of the physician’s visit.”6 This is to ensure that hospitalists and other specialists support the medical necessity of the service and do not continue to report critical care codes on days after the patient has become stable and improved.
Consider the following scenarios:
CMS examples of patients whose medical condition may warrant critical care services (99291, 99292):6
- An 81-year-old male patient is admitted to the ICU 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.
- A 67-year-old female patient is three days post mitral valve repair. She develops petechiae, hypotension, and hypoxia requiring respiratory and circulatory support.
- A 70-year-old admitted for right lower lobe pneumococcal pneumonia with a history of COPD becomes hypoxic and hypotensive two days after admission.
- 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.
CMS 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, are not eligible for critical care payment but may be reported using another appropriate hospital care code, such as subsequent hospital care codes (99231–99233), initial hospital care codes (99221–99223), or hospital consultation codes (99251–99255) when applicable:1,6
- Patients admitted to a critical care unit because no other hospital beds were available;
- Patients admitted to a critical care unit for close nursing observation and/or frequent monitoring of vital signs (e.g., drug toxicity or overdose);
- 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; and
- Patients receiving only care of a chronic illness in absence of care for a critical illness (e.g., daily management of a chronic ventilator patient, management of or care related to dialysis for end-stage renal disease). Services considered palliative in nature as this type of care do not meet the definition of critical care services.7
Concurrent Care
Critically ill patients often require the care of hospitalists and other specialists throughout the course of treatment. Payors are sensitive to the multiple hours billed by multiple providers for a single patient on a given day. Claim logic provides an automated response to only allow reimbursement for 99291 once per day when reported by physicians of the same group and specialty.8 Physicians of different specialties can separately report critical care hours as long as they are caring for a condition that meets the definition of critical care.
The CMS example of this: 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.6
Similarly for hospitalists, if an intensivist is taking care of the critical condition and there is nothing more for the hospitalist to add to the plan of care for the critical condition, critical care services may not be justified.
When different specialists are reporting critical care on the same day, it is imperative for the documentation to demonstrate that care is not duplicative of any other provider’s care (i.e., identify management of different conditions or revising elements of the plan). The care cannot overlap the same time period of any other physician reporting critical care services.
Calculating Time
Critical care time constitutes bedside time and time spent on the patient’s unit/floor where the physician is immediately available to the patient (see Table 1). Certain labs, diagnostic studies, and procedures are considered inherent to critical care services and are not reported separately on the claim form: cardiac output measurements (93561, 93562); chest X-rays (71010, 71015, 71020); pulse oximetry (94760, 94761, 94762); blood gases and interpretation of data stored in computers, such as ECGs, blood pressures, and hematologic data (99090); gastric intubation (43752, 43753); temporary transcutaneous pacing (92953); ventilation management (94002–94004, 94660, 94662); and vascular access procedures (36000, 36410, 36415, 36591, 36600).1
Instead, physician time associated with the performance and/or interpretation of these services is toward the cumulative critical care time of the day. Services or procedures that are considered separately billable (e.g., central line placement, intubation, CPR) cannot contribute to critical care time.
When separately billable procedures are performed by the same provider/specialty group on the same day as critical care, physicians should make a notation in the medical record indicating the non-overlapping service times (e.g., “central line insertion is not included as critical care time”). This may assist with securing reimbursement when the payor requests the documentation for each reported claim item.
Activities on the floor/unit that do not directly contribute to patient care or management (e.g., review of literature, teaching rounds) cannot be counted toward critical care time. Do not count time associated with indirect care provided outside of the patient’s unit/floor (e.g., reviewing data or calling the family from the office) toward critical care time.
Family discussions can be counted toward critical care time but must take place at bedside or on the patient’s unit/floor. The patient must participate in the discussion unless medically unable or clinically incompetent to participate. If unable to participate, a notation in the chart must delineate the patient’s inability to participate and the reason.
Credited time can only involve obtaining a medical history and/or discussing treatment options or limitation(s) of treatment. The conversation must bear directly on patient management.1,7 Do not count time associated with providing periodic condition updates to the family, answering questions about the patient’s condition that are unrelated to decision making, or counseling the family during their grief process. If the conversation must take place via phone, it may be counted toward critical care time if the physician is calling from the patient’s unit/floor and the conversation involves the same criterion identified for face-to-face family meetings.10
Physicians should keep track of their critical care time throughout the day. Since critical care time is a cumulative service, each entry should include the total time that critical care services were provided (e.g., 45 minutes).10 Some payors may still impose the notation of “start-and-stop time” per encounter (e.g., 2–2:50 a.m.).
Same-specialty physicians (i.e., two hospitalists from the same group practice) may require separate claims. The initial critical care hour (99291) must be met by a single physician. Medically necessary critical care time beyond the first hour (99292) may be met individually by the same physician or collectively with another physician from the same group. The physician performing the additional time, beyond the first hour, reports the appropriate units of 99292 (see Table 1) under the corresponding NPI.11
CMS has issued instructions for contractors to recognize this atypical reporting method. However, non-Medicare payors may not recognize this newer reporting method and maintain that the cumulative service (by the same-specialty physician in the same provider group) should be reported under one physician name. Be sure to query the payors for appropriate reporting methods. TH
References
- Abraham M, Ahlman J, Boudreau A, Connelly J, Crosslin, R. Current Procedural Terminology 2015 Professional Edition. Chicago: American Medical Association Press; 2014. 23-25.
- Widespread prepayment targeted review notification—CPT 99291. Cahaba website. Available at: www.cahabagba.com/news/widespread-prepayment-targeted-review-notification-part-b/. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Critical care CPT 99291 widespread prepayment targeted review results. Cahaba website. Available at: https://www.cahabagba.com/news/critical-care-cpt-99291-widespread-prepayment-targeted-review-results-2/. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Prepayment edit of evaluation and management (E/M) code 99291. First Coast Service Options, Inc. website. Available at: medicare.fcso.com/Publications_B/2013/251608.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12A. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12B. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Critical care fact sheet. CGS Administrators, LLC website. Available at: www.cgsmedicare.com/partb/mr/pdf/critical_care_fact_sheet.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Same day same service policy. United Healthcare website. Available at: www.unitedhealthcareonline.com/ccmcontent/ProviderII/UHC/en-US/Main%20Menu/Tools%20&%20Resources/Policies%20and%20Protocols/Medicare%20Advantage%20Reimbursement%20Policies/S/SameDaySameService.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12G. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12E. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12I. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
Code 99291 is used for critical care, evaluation, and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient, first 30–74 minutes.1 It is to be reported only once per day per physician or group member of the same specialty.
Code 99292 is for critical care, evaluation, and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient, each additional 30 minutes. It is to be listed separately in addition to the code for primary service.1 Code 99292 is categorized as an add-on code. It must be reported on the same invoice as its primary code, 99291. Multiple units of code 99292 can be reported per day per physician/group.
Despite the increased resources and references for critical care billing, critical care reporting issues persist. Medicare data analysis continues to identify 99291 as high risk for claim payment errors, perpetuating prepayment claim edits for outlier utilization and location discrepancies (i.e., settings other than inpatient hospital, outpatient hospital, or the emergency department). 2,3,4
Bolster your documentation with these three key elements.
Critical Illness, Injury Management
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) define “critical illness or injury” as a condition that 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 (e.g., central nervous system failure; circulatory failure; shock; renal, hepatic, metabolic, and/or respiratory failure).5
Hospitalists providing care to the critically ill patient must perform highly complex decision making and interventions of high intensity that are required to prevent the patient’s inevitable decline. CMS further elaborates that “the patient shall be critically ill or injured at the time of the physician’s visit.”6 This is to ensure that hospitalists and other specialists support the medical necessity of the service and do not continue to report critical care codes on days after the patient has become stable and improved.
Consider the following scenarios:
CMS examples of patients whose medical condition may warrant critical care services (99291, 99292):6
- An 81-year-old male patient is admitted to the ICU 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.
- A 67-year-old female patient is three days post mitral valve repair. She develops petechiae, hypotension, and hypoxia requiring respiratory and circulatory support.
- A 70-year-old admitted for right lower lobe pneumococcal pneumonia with a history of COPD becomes hypoxic and hypotensive two days after admission.
- 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.
CMS 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, are not eligible for critical care payment but may be reported using another appropriate hospital care code, such as subsequent hospital care codes (99231–99233), initial hospital care codes (99221–99223), or hospital consultation codes (99251–99255) when applicable:1,6
- Patients admitted to a critical care unit because no other hospital beds were available;
- Patients admitted to a critical care unit for close nursing observation and/or frequent monitoring of vital signs (e.g., drug toxicity or overdose);
- 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; and
- Patients receiving only care of a chronic illness in absence of care for a critical illness (e.g., daily management of a chronic ventilator patient, management of or care related to dialysis for end-stage renal disease). Services considered palliative in nature as this type of care do not meet the definition of critical care services.7
Concurrent Care
Critically ill patients often require the care of hospitalists and other specialists throughout the course of treatment. Payors are sensitive to the multiple hours billed by multiple providers for a single patient on a given day. Claim logic provides an automated response to only allow reimbursement for 99291 once per day when reported by physicians of the same group and specialty.8 Physicians of different specialties can separately report critical care hours as long as they are caring for a condition that meets the definition of critical care.
The CMS example of this: 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.6
Similarly for hospitalists, if an intensivist is taking care of the critical condition and there is nothing more for the hospitalist to add to the plan of care for the critical condition, critical care services may not be justified.
When different specialists are reporting critical care on the same day, it is imperative for the documentation to demonstrate that care is not duplicative of any other provider’s care (i.e., identify management of different conditions or revising elements of the plan). The care cannot overlap the same time period of any other physician reporting critical care services.
Calculating Time
Critical care time constitutes bedside time and time spent on the patient’s unit/floor where the physician is immediately available to the patient (see Table 1). Certain labs, diagnostic studies, and procedures are considered inherent to critical care services and are not reported separately on the claim form: cardiac output measurements (93561, 93562); chest X-rays (71010, 71015, 71020); pulse oximetry (94760, 94761, 94762); blood gases and interpretation of data stored in computers, such as ECGs, blood pressures, and hematologic data (99090); gastric intubation (43752, 43753); temporary transcutaneous pacing (92953); ventilation management (94002–94004, 94660, 94662); and vascular access procedures (36000, 36410, 36415, 36591, 36600).1
Instead, physician time associated with the performance and/or interpretation of these services is toward the cumulative critical care time of the day. Services or procedures that are considered separately billable (e.g., central line placement, intubation, CPR) cannot contribute to critical care time.
When separately billable procedures are performed by the same provider/specialty group on the same day as critical care, physicians should make a notation in the medical record indicating the non-overlapping service times (e.g., “central line insertion is not included as critical care time”). This may assist with securing reimbursement when the payor requests the documentation for each reported claim item.
Activities on the floor/unit that do not directly contribute to patient care or management (e.g., review of literature, teaching rounds) cannot be counted toward critical care time. Do not count time associated with indirect care provided outside of the patient’s unit/floor (e.g., reviewing data or calling the family from the office) toward critical care time.
Family discussions can be counted toward critical care time but must take place at bedside or on the patient’s unit/floor. The patient must participate in the discussion unless medically unable or clinically incompetent to participate. If unable to participate, a notation in the chart must delineate the patient’s inability to participate and the reason.
Credited time can only involve obtaining a medical history and/or discussing treatment options or limitation(s) of treatment. The conversation must bear directly on patient management.1,7 Do not count time associated with providing periodic condition updates to the family, answering questions about the patient’s condition that are unrelated to decision making, or counseling the family during their grief process. If the conversation must take place via phone, it may be counted toward critical care time if the physician is calling from the patient’s unit/floor and the conversation involves the same criterion identified for face-to-face family meetings.10
Physicians should keep track of their critical care time throughout the day. Since critical care time is a cumulative service, each entry should include the total time that critical care services were provided (e.g., 45 minutes).10 Some payors may still impose the notation of “start-and-stop time” per encounter (e.g., 2–2:50 a.m.).
Same-specialty physicians (i.e., two hospitalists from the same group practice) may require separate claims. The initial critical care hour (99291) must be met by a single physician. Medically necessary critical care time beyond the first hour (99292) may be met individually by the same physician or collectively with another physician from the same group. The physician performing the additional time, beyond the first hour, reports the appropriate units of 99292 (see Table 1) under the corresponding NPI.11
CMS has issued instructions for contractors to recognize this atypical reporting method. However, non-Medicare payors may not recognize this newer reporting method and maintain that the cumulative service (by the same-specialty physician in the same provider group) should be reported under one physician name. Be sure to query the payors for appropriate reporting methods. TH
References
- Abraham M, Ahlman J, Boudreau A, Connelly J, Crosslin, R. Current Procedural Terminology 2015 Professional Edition. Chicago: American Medical Association Press; 2014. 23-25.
- Widespread prepayment targeted review notification—CPT 99291. Cahaba website. Available at: www.cahabagba.com/news/widespread-prepayment-targeted-review-notification-part-b/. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Critical care CPT 99291 widespread prepayment targeted review results. Cahaba website. Available at: https://www.cahabagba.com/news/critical-care-cpt-99291-widespread-prepayment-targeted-review-results-2/. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Prepayment edit of evaluation and management (E/M) code 99291. First Coast Service Options, Inc. website. Available at: medicare.fcso.com/Publications_B/2013/251608.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12A. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12B. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Critical care fact sheet. CGS Administrators, LLC website. Available at: www.cgsmedicare.com/partb/mr/pdf/critical_care_fact_sheet.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Same day same service policy. United Healthcare website. Available at: www.unitedhealthcareonline.com/ccmcontent/ProviderII/UHC/en-US/Main%20Menu/Tools%20&%20Resources/Policies%20and%20Protocols/Medicare%20Advantage%20Reimbursement%20Policies/S/SameDaySameService.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12G. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12E. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12I. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
Code 99291 is used for critical care, evaluation, and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient, first 30–74 minutes.1 It is to be reported only once per day per physician or group member of the same specialty.
Code 99292 is for critical care, evaluation, and management of the critically ill or critically injured patient, each additional 30 minutes. It is to be listed separately in addition to the code for primary service.1 Code 99292 is categorized as an add-on code. It must be reported on the same invoice as its primary code, 99291. Multiple units of code 99292 can be reported per day per physician/group.
Despite the increased resources and references for critical care billing, critical care reporting issues persist. Medicare data analysis continues to identify 99291 as high risk for claim payment errors, perpetuating prepayment claim edits for outlier utilization and location discrepancies (i.e., settings other than inpatient hospital, outpatient hospital, or the emergency department). 2,3,4
Bolster your documentation with these three key elements.
Critical Illness, Injury Management
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) define “critical illness or injury” as a condition that 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 (e.g., central nervous system failure; circulatory failure; shock; renal, hepatic, metabolic, and/or respiratory failure).5
Hospitalists providing care to the critically ill patient must perform highly complex decision making and interventions of high intensity that are required to prevent the patient’s inevitable decline. CMS further elaborates that “the patient shall be critically ill or injured at the time of the physician’s visit.”6 This is to ensure that hospitalists and other specialists support the medical necessity of the service and do not continue to report critical care codes on days after the patient has become stable and improved.
Consider the following scenarios:
CMS examples of patients whose medical condition may warrant critical care services (99291, 99292):6
- An 81-year-old male patient is admitted to the ICU 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.
- A 67-year-old female patient is three days post mitral valve repair. She develops petechiae, hypotension, and hypoxia requiring respiratory and circulatory support.
- A 70-year-old admitted for right lower lobe pneumococcal pneumonia with a history of COPD becomes hypoxic and hypotensive two days after admission.
- 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.
CMS 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, are not eligible for critical care payment but may be reported using another appropriate hospital care code, such as subsequent hospital care codes (99231–99233), initial hospital care codes (99221–99223), or hospital consultation codes (99251–99255) when applicable:1,6
- Patients admitted to a critical care unit because no other hospital beds were available;
- Patients admitted to a critical care unit for close nursing observation and/or frequent monitoring of vital signs (e.g., drug toxicity or overdose);
- 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; and
- Patients receiving only care of a chronic illness in absence of care for a critical illness (e.g., daily management of a chronic ventilator patient, management of or care related to dialysis for end-stage renal disease). Services considered palliative in nature as this type of care do not meet the definition of critical care services.7
Concurrent Care
Critically ill patients often require the care of hospitalists and other specialists throughout the course of treatment. Payors are sensitive to the multiple hours billed by multiple providers for a single patient on a given day. Claim logic provides an automated response to only allow reimbursement for 99291 once per day when reported by physicians of the same group and specialty.8 Physicians of different specialties can separately report critical care hours as long as they are caring for a condition that meets the definition of critical care.
The CMS example of this: 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.6
Similarly for hospitalists, if an intensivist is taking care of the critical condition and there is nothing more for the hospitalist to add to the plan of care for the critical condition, critical care services may not be justified.
When different specialists are reporting critical care on the same day, it is imperative for the documentation to demonstrate that care is not duplicative of any other provider’s care (i.e., identify management of different conditions or revising elements of the plan). The care cannot overlap the same time period of any other physician reporting critical care services.
Calculating Time
Critical care time constitutes bedside time and time spent on the patient’s unit/floor where the physician is immediately available to the patient (see Table 1). Certain labs, diagnostic studies, and procedures are considered inherent to critical care services and are not reported separately on the claim form: cardiac output measurements (93561, 93562); chest X-rays (71010, 71015, 71020); pulse oximetry (94760, 94761, 94762); blood gases and interpretation of data stored in computers, such as ECGs, blood pressures, and hematologic data (99090); gastric intubation (43752, 43753); temporary transcutaneous pacing (92953); ventilation management (94002–94004, 94660, 94662); and vascular access procedures (36000, 36410, 36415, 36591, 36600).1
Instead, physician time associated with the performance and/or interpretation of these services is toward the cumulative critical care time of the day. Services or procedures that are considered separately billable (e.g., central line placement, intubation, CPR) cannot contribute to critical care time.
When separately billable procedures are performed by the same provider/specialty group on the same day as critical care, physicians should make a notation in the medical record indicating the non-overlapping service times (e.g., “central line insertion is not included as critical care time”). This may assist with securing reimbursement when the payor requests the documentation for each reported claim item.
Activities on the floor/unit that do not directly contribute to patient care or management (e.g., review of literature, teaching rounds) cannot be counted toward critical care time. Do not count time associated with indirect care provided outside of the patient’s unit/floor (e.g., reviewing data or calling the family from the office) toward critical care time.
Family discussions can be counted toward critical care time but must take place at bedside or on the patient’s unit/floor. The patient must participate in the discussion unless medically unable or clinically incompetent to participate. If unable to participate, a notation in the chart must delineate the patient’s inability to participate and the reason.
Credited time can only involve obtaining a medical history and/or discussing treatment options or limitation(s) of treatment. The conversation must bear directly on patient management.1,7 Do not count time associated with providing periodic condition updates to the family, answering questions about the patient’s condition that are unrelated to decision making, or counseling the family during their grief process. If the conversation must take place via phone, it may be counted toward critical care time if the physician is calling from the patient’s unit/floor and the conversation involves the same criterion identified for face-to-face family meetings.10
Physicians should keep track of their critical care time throughout the day. Since critical care time is a cumulative service, each entry should include the total time that critical care services were provided (e.g., 45 minutes).10 Some payors may still impose the notation of “start-and-stop time” per encounter (e.g., 2–2:50 a.m.).
Same-specialty physicians (i.e., two hospitalists from the same group practice) may require separate claims. The initial critical care hour (99291) must be met by a single physician. Medically necessary critical care time beyond the first hour (99292) may be met individually by the same physician or collectively with another physician from the same group. The physician performing the additional time, beyond the first hour, reports the appropriate units of 99292 (see Table 1) under the corresponding NPI.11
CMS has issued instructions for contractors to recognize this atypical reporting method. However, non-Medicare payors may not recognize this newer reporting method and maintain that the cumulative service (by the same-specialty physician in the same provider group) should be reported under one physician name. Be sure to query the payors for appropriate reporting methods. TH
References
- Abraham M, Ahlman J, Boudreau A, Connelly J, Crosslin, R. Current Procedural Terminology 2015 Professional Edition. Chicago: American Medical Association Press; 2014. 23-25.
- Widespread prepayment targeted review notification—CPT 99291. Cahaba website. Available at: www.cahabagba.com/news/widespread-prepayment-targeted-review-notification-part-b/. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Critical care CPT 99291 widespread prepayment targeted review results. Cahaba website. Available at: https://www.cahabagba.com/news/critical-care-cpt-99291-widespread-prepayment-targeted-review-results-2/. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Prepayment edit of evaluation and management (E/M) code 99291. First Coast Service Options, Inc. website. Available at: medicare.fcso.com/Publications_B/2013/251608.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12A. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12B. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Critical care fact sheet. CGS Administrators, LLC website. Available at: www.cgsmedicare.com/partb/mr/pdf/critical_care_fact_sheet.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Same day same service policy. United Healthcare website. Available at: www.unitedhealthcareonline.com/ccmcontent/ProviderII/UHC/en-US/Main%20Menu/Tools%20&%20Resources/Policies%20and%20Protocols/Medicare%20Advantage%20Reimbursement%20Policies/S/SameDaySameService.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12G. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12E. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
- Medicare claims processing manual: chapter 12, section 30.6.12I. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. Available at: www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf. Accessed December 17, 2015.
