Emergencey department referral procedure

Emergency Department Referrals

The transfer of care or portion of care is a referral.

•    The Emergency Department provider requests that the specialist take over care or a portion of care.  The Emergency Department does not intend for the patient to receive follow-up care in the Emergency Department. 

•    To code Emergency Department services with separate specialist services, there will be two ADM records created.

•    An appointment will be generated in the Emergency Department.  The Emergency Department provider will document services he provided.  In the documented plan of care, the Emergency Department provider will indicate a portion or all of the care will be transferred to the specialist.  The Emergency Department provider will generally use a code in the 99281-99285 series and collect the care in the BIAA MEPRS. 

•    The specialist will document his services in a separate document.  The specialist will have an appointment generated in his clinic, usually a “walk-in.”  The appointment will be marked as “kept” which will generate a report to be completed in the ADM.  This will be a separate ADM report than the report generated in the Emergency Department.  The specialist will usually code an office visit range of 99201-99215 in the specialist’s outpatient clinic MEPRS. 

•    If the specialist admits the patient, there would not be a clinic appointment generated, but the documentation would become part of the inpatient record and collected in the IBWA rounds appointment.

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