Don't Risk Losing Thousands on Subsequent Hospital Care

Why This Topic Matters

Subsequent hospital care E/M claims are highly dependent on documentation quality, so gaps can lead to lower-level reporting and financial loss. The article helps readers understand the broad documentation areas to review when validating claims and improving coding accuracy.

Article Sections

1. Strengthen documentation to improve your E/M claims

   Introduces the article’s focus on documentation quality for subsequent-care evaluation and management claims and the financial impact of undercoding.

2. Question 1: Did the Surgeon Specify Two of Three E/M Components?

   Reviews the major documentation elements used to support subsequent hospital care service levels and discusses a postoperative context involving an unrelated evaluation and management service.

3. Question 2: Did the Surgeon Report Two to Seven Body Systems?

   Describes general multi-system examination expectations and the broad categories of body systems that may be documented in a subsequent hospital visit.

4. Question 3: How Can I Check Our 99231 Claims?

   Covers retrospective chart review as a method for checking repeated reporting patterns and validating whether documented service levels align with the code selected.