Pediatrician present at delivery

Comments

• Unknown

  October 2013 edited May 2016

  I was curious about the answer to your question, so I asked our professional fee coders this question and here is the response I received. Hope this helps:
  
  "CPT guidelines require that there be a specific request from the delivering provider in order for another provider to report attendance at delivery. That can be documented in the delivering provider’s note or in the note of the provider who is asked to attend. I always tell my providers to document in their note who requested the attendance as I cannot see the note of the delivering physician to verify whether there was a request and it is highly unlikely that the delivering physician ever documents this request. As far as an order, I think this is even less likely to happen. The attendance request is a gray area as there is a protocol written for the hospitals that establishes the criteria for which there will be a request. So the delivering provider doesn’t actually make the request, the delivery room team follows the protocol which all the delivering physicians have agreed to and signed off on. So this in their mind constitutes the request. I just tell my providers to document the name of the delivering physician in their note as the requestor since that delivering physician is aware of the request. I’ve never heard of a denial for any of my cases because of a missing request."
  
  Linda Haynes, RHIT, CCDS
  Manager, CDI
  Legacy Health
  lhaynes@lhs.org