Are you familiar with Current Procedural Terminology (CPT ®) instructions for reporting inpatient consultations? Test your knowledge by assigning codes to the following scenario. Assume the patient’s health plan pays for services reported with CPT consultation codes. Answers can be found elsewhere in this newsletter.
Dr German, an infectious disease specialist, is consulted by an orthopedic surgeon about a 2-year-old on the first day of an admission for septic arthritis of the right knee. Dr German completes a comprehensive history and examination with high-complexity medical decision-making (MDM) and provides advice to the attending physician (request and response documented in the shared medical record) on management of infection pending culture results.
At the request of the attending physician, Dr German assumes management of the infection and provides 3 subsequent hospital care visits before releasing management of the now-confirmed methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus infection to the attending hospitalist. The first management...