2009 Cpt Codes: Pediatric Coding

By Author: Nancy Rose
Total Articles: 53
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The 2009 CPT codes have eased a lot of issues for pediatric coders. When CPT 2008 introduced initial intensive hospital care, the only place to stick the code was in the other evaluation and management services section. This placement led to confusion regarding how to properly use 99477 (Initial hospital care, per day, for the evaluation and management of the neonate, 28 days of age or less, who requires intensive observation, frequent interventions, and other intensive care services).


The new 2009 CPT codes have been renumbered and relocated in the intensive care subsection. You can now easily see that a newborn progresses from intensive care to subsequent critical care.


To make sure you don't get lost in the renumbered and relocated sections follow these fundamentals:


1. Newborn Care Codes


The 2009 CPT codes numbers the whole newborn care section including normal newborn care. Now, you will report 99431-99440 with new ...
... codes 99460-99465.


2. Transport Codes


Pay attention if you code for a hospital that sends pediatric patients to a facility with a higher-level nursery -- or for a practice that has to coordinate an emergency transport. You'll find the pediatric critical care patient transport codes after 99465 in CPT 2009.


3. Critical Care Pediatric Codes for older child (2 - 5 year)


If the jump from daily pediatric critical care to hourly adult critical care after 24 months of age seemed extreme, refer to the two new pediatric critical care per day codes for children age 2 through 5. These codes will follow the inpatient pediatric and neonatal codes, which CPT 2009 moves to 99468-99472 from 99293-99296.

The 2009 CPT codes for pediatrics will ensure the success of the daily bundled neonatal and current pediatric critical and intensive care. The new changes will not only increase your ease at coding, it'll also increase your opportunity for increased payment.


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