Question:
How does Medicare reimburse ventilation management provided during an observation stay?
Answer:
The service will be paid according to the guidelines for outpatient procedures. Under the outpatient procedure payment system (OPPS), the following procedure codes are paid according to APC 5801:
| 94002 | Ventilation assist and management, initiation of pressure or volume preset ventilators for assisted or controlled breathing; hospital inpatient/observation, initial day |
| 94003 | hospital inpatient/observation, each subsequent day |
It should be noted that both CPT® codes map to an APC status indicator of “Q3,” meaning that if all criteria are met to trigger the Observation Comprehensive APC packaging rule (J2) ventilation management will be packaged to the observation stay.
CPT® is a registered trademark of the American Medical Association.
This question was answered in the 2018 edition of our Coding Essentials for RT/Pulmonary Function. For more hot topics relating to respiratory therapy services, please view our store, or call us at 1.800.252.1578 ext. 2.
