Critical care billing codes/fees

[leviathan]

Canadian intensivist here, just started working in the last year and looking for advice. I admitted an American patient while on call. They have private insurance. If anyone has any advice on how much to bill their provider for a critical care consultation, plus any add-ons for after-hours (I saw them at 2am) that would be appreciated. Feel free to either reply here or private message me.

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[deleted547339]

In the US, critical care billing is based on time and procedures. The time spent taking care of the patient (separate from separately billable procedures) in a 24 hour period is cumulative from midnight to midnight. Any time spent dealing with a patient that is critically ill (exam, reviewing labs, orders, document, family discussions, rounding, tinkering with vent and drips, etc) is billable.

Central lines, intubations, arterial lines, chest tubes, cpr, bronchs are all separate codes.

 

[bigdan]

My hospital bills out $608 for the critical care, which covers 30-74 minutes of critical care time (and any time of day), encompassing all non-procedural services (as TNR nicely described above).

What we get paid for that ranges from $0.00 to some amount more than zero.
Medicare pays in the mid to upper $300s.