Your Guide to Answering E/M Critical Care Questions

It’s no secret that coding and auditing for critical care can often leave you scratching our heads’ in confusion. Done properly, it requires a skilled coder or auditor to carefully review the physicians’ notes for keywords that indicate whether or not the physician was justified in coding for critical care. Compounding the confusion are the various gray areas inherently built into the guidelines.

So it comes as no surprise to us that we constantly get questions on the topic. Whether the topics are around proper documentation, or when an E/M code and a critical care code can be reported on the same date, or accurately reporting split/shared services, we've found there’s a lot to unpack.

So much so, that we thought it was time to gather some of your most common questions up in one quick-reference resource. Which is exactly what we’ve done in our new eGuide, Your E/M Critical Care Questions, Answered. Inside you’ll find answers to a ton of common questions, including:

• Does the Physician Have to State Why the Patient Needs Critical Care?
• Is Palliative Care Permitted as Critical Care Billing?
• What Is the Difference Between Charging Facility vs. Professional Critical Care Billing?
• Can We Assume That Intensivists are Always Providing Critical Care?
• If the Patient Presents With an Exacerbation CHF or COPD Would That Qualify for Critical Care?

After reading our new eGuide, if you find you have additional questions, be sure to leave them in the Comments section below.