COVID-19 coding: AMA provides guidance on 11 scenarios

The American Medical Association has published a COVID-19 coding scenario guide, that includes a number of coding scenarios for physicians treating COVID-19 patients.

The COVID-19 scenarios presented include:

• Patient comes to office for E/M visit, is tested for COVID-19 during the visit.

• Patient comes to office for E/M visit re: COVID-19 and is directed to a testing site.

• Patient received telehealth visit re: COVID-19, and is directed to come to physician office or physician’s group practice site for testing.

• Patient received telehealth visit re: COVID-19, and is directed to unaffiliated testing site.

• Patient receives virtual check-in/online visit re: COVID-19 (not related to E/M visit), and is directed to come to physician office for testing.

• Patient receives virtual check-in/online visit re: COVID-19 (not related to E/M visit) and is directed to unaffiliated testing site.

• Telehealth visit for a COVID-19 diagnosed patient.

• Patient with COVID-19 receives virtual check-in OR on-line visits via patient portal/e-mail (not related to E/M visit) OR telephone call from qualified nonphysician (those who may not report E/M).

• Physician orders remote physiologic monitoring following patient quarantined at home after receiving COVID-19 diagnosis.

The non-COVID-19 scenarios include:

• Telehealth visit for a non-COVID-19 patient.

• Patient receives virtual check-in OR on-line visits via patient portal/e-mail (not related to E/M visit) OR telephone call from qualified nonphysician (those who may not report E/M).

To view the detailed scenarios, view the document on the AMA website.