Lori
Well-known member
Good Morning Coders!
What are you coding today?
By definition, unit/floor time includes the total time spent on the patient’s hospital unit, including time at “and away from “the bedside. Reviewing medical records, reading X-rays, charting, and communicating with other clinicians and family members all fall under this umbrella. These activities are billable, which is great news for hospitalists because we spend the minority of our time at bedside.
CPT recognizes unit/floor time for both inpatient services and prolonged services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not. The CMS allows you to count unit/floor time toward your choice of initial or subsequent care code but not toward billing for prolonged services.
Why? Because only direct face-to-face contact between the physician and patient (whether or not that was continuous) counts for prolonged services, and a lot of unit/floor time occurs outside the patient’s presence. Basically, unit/floor care is a giveaway when we exceed the time threshold for the various levels of initial or subsequent care.
What are you coding today?
By definition, unit/floor time includes the total time spent on the patient’s hospital unit, including time at “and away from “the bedside. Reviewing medical records, reading X-rays, charting, and communicating with other clinicians and family members all fall under this umbrella. These activities are billable, which is great news for hospitalists because we spend the minority of our time at bedside.
CPT recognizes unit/floor time for both inpatient services and prolonged services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not. The CMS allows you to count unit/floor time toward your choice of initial or subsequent care code but not toward billing for prolonged services.
Why? Because only direct face-to-face contact between the physician and patient (whether or not that was continuous) counts for prolonged services, and a lot of unit/floor time occurs outside the patient’s presence. Basically, unit/floor care is a giveaway when we exceed the time threshold for the various levels of initial or subsequent care.