This is Part 2 of the information recently published by Medicare on choosing the date of service for claims that are not straightforward due to the service encompassing several dates, or being provided without the patient being present.
Cardiovascular Monitoring Services
There are many different procedure codes that represent the cardiovascular monitoring services. These can be identified as professional components, technical components, or a combination of the two. Some of these monitoring services may take place at a single point in time, others may take place over 24 or 48 hours, or over a 30-day period. The determination of the date of service is based on the description of the procedure code and the time listed. When the service includes a physician review and/or interpretation and report, the date of service is the date the physician completes that activity. If the service is a technical service, the date of service is the date the monitoring concludes based on the description of the service. For example, if the description of the procedure code includes 30 days of monitoring and a physician interpretation and report, then the date of service will be no earlier than the 30th day of monitoring and will be the date the physician completed the professional component of the service.
Psychiatric Testing and Evaluations
In some cases, for various reasons, psychiatric evaluations (90791/90792) and/or psychological and neuropsychological tests (96101/96146) are completed in multiple sessions that occur on different days. In these situations, the date of service that should be reported on the claim is the date of service on which the service (based on ) concluded. Documentation should reflect that the service began on one day and concluded on another day (the date of service reported on the claim). If documentation is requested, medical records for both days should be submitted. Psychiatric Testing when provided over multiple days based on the patient being able to provide information, is billed based on the time involved as described by CPT and the last date of the test.
Maternity Benefits
All expenses incurred for surgical and obstetrical care, including preoperative/prenatal examinations, testing, and post-operative/postnatal services are part of the maternity package and may be billed under the appropriate surgical code on the date of delivery or termination. Charges the practitioner may impose that are not related to the delivery are incurred on the date furnished.
Surgical Services
Medicare’s payment for most surgical services is made using the global surgery rules. All services considered to be part of the global package including follow-up visits, are considered to have occurred on the same day as the surgical service and are not submitted separately. Surgeons who perform the surgery and then transfer post-operative care to another practitioner will submit their claims using the date of the surgery as the date of service along with Modifier 54. If the surgeon keeps responsibility for the patient for some of the post-operative care, he/she would submit the date of the surgery, the surgery procedure code with Modifier 55, and the last date of responsibility indicated in Item 19 or the electronic equivalent. The practitioner receiving the transfer of care will submit his/her post-operative services using the surgical procedure code with Modifier 55 with the date of the surgery as his/her date of service. If the practitioner receives the patient on a date other than the discharge date from an inpatient stay, Item 19 or the electronic equivalent will include the date care began.
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