Subsequent hospital care, also known as daily care, presents a variety of daily-care scenarios that cause confusion for billing providers.
Subsequent hospital care codes are reported once per day after the initial patient encounter (e.g., admission or consultation service), but only when a face-to-face visit occurs between provider and patient.
The entire visit need not take place at the bedside. It may include other important elements performed on the patient’s unit/floor such as data review, discussions with other healthcare professionals, coordination of care, and family meetings. In addition, subsequent hospital care codes represent the cumulative evaluation and management service performed on a calendar date, even if the hospitalist evaluates the patient for different reasons or at different times throughout the day.
Concurrent Care
Traditionally, concurrent care occurs when physicians of different specialties and group practices participate in a patient’s care. Each physician manages a particular aspect while considering the patient’s overall condition.
When submitting claims for concurrent care services, each physician should report the appropriate subsequent hospital care code and the corresponding diagnosis each primarily manages. If billed correctly, each hospitalist will have a different primary diagnosis code and be more likely to receive payment.
Some managed-care payers require each hospitalist to append modifier 25 to their evaluation and management (E/M) visit code (99232-25) even though each submits claims under different tax identification numbers. Modifier 25 is a separately identifiable E/M service performed on the same day as a procedure or other E/M service. In this situation, Medicare is likely to reimburse as appropriate.