What Codes Are Used For Outpatient Coding
                     What Codes Are 
Used For 
Outpatient 
Coding?
• When you own a small medical practice, you 
know all about the fine line you have to balance 
between providing quality patient care while 
also staying on top of your medical coding and 
billing—not to mention adhering to all the 
inpatient and outpatient coding guidelines.
• Whether it’s for securing the right amount of 
reimbursement for your medical services 
rendered or simply ensuring your patients’ 
diagnoses are properly documented, your 
medical coders play a major part in the overall 
stability of your medical practice.
• As a result, your medical billing team must 
always be aware of the official coding 
guidelines for both inpatient coding and in 
an outpatient setting.
• This can be a fairly convoluted experience 
without the time and resources available to 
larger practices, so we’ll be breaking down 
all you need to know about outpatient 
medical coding within this article.
Current Procedural 
Terminology (CPT) Codes
• First on our list, we have CPT codes. These 
are fairly integral codes for following 
outpatient and inpatient coding guidelines 
and are ultimately used for describing things 
like medical procedures, services, and tests, 
too.
• Let’s take a look at the three main categories 
CPT codes are organized into:
Evaluation and 
Management (E/M) Codes
• E/M codes are primarily used for describing 
patient encounters—think of things such as 
office visits, consultations, and even hospital 
follow-ups.
• Basically, they take into account factors like 
the complexity of their medical history and 
the level of physical examination provided.
Procedure Codes
• These are slightly different as they refer 
to medical interventions instead. For 
example, surgeries, diagnostic tests, and 
therapeutic procedures, too. Each one of 
these procedures is then assigned a 
specific CPT code, which essentially 
allows for accurate billing.
Ancillary Service Codes
• Lastly, ancillary service codes are used for 
things such as laboratory tests and radiology 
services, which help categorize all the 
different tests used to diagnose and treat a 
patient.
• To read our full blog, click here: https
://pmninc.biz/what-codes-are-used-for-outpa
tient-coding/