Palliative Care: Does Medicare cover?
Medicare may cover this service if it is medically necessary and does not duplicate what an attending/treating physician or other provider has already done nor duplicates care that is part of what a facility (e.g. a nursing facility) or Hospice should already be providing for its residents/patients. Date Posted: 3/31/2008 • Observation Care: If a doctor gives orders over the phone to admit a patient to observation but does not see the patient till the next day and then decides to discharge the patient, what code would be billed? In this example, the doctorneitheradmitted the patient on the actual date ofadmission nor dida true “admission and discharge servicethe same date of service as represented by CPT codes 99234-99236. These codes include an admission, keeping a record of observations/assessments performed by the physician, and discharge. In this example, the doctor made only one evaluative visit and decided to discharge the patient. The provider may bill a code from the series 992
