New Code to Report Date of Death on Medicare Claims

October is months away but be prepared…Effective Oct.1, 2012 Medicare-certified agencies will use occurrence code 55 to indicate a date of death on claims.

The new occurrence code will be used in conjunction with all discharge status codes indicating the patient has expired – 20 (expired), 40 (expired at home), 41 (expired in a medical facility), or 42 (expired – place unknown)

Please note that hospices are not to use discharge status code 20 per Section 30.3 of Chapter 11 of the Medicare Claims Processing Manual. Additional information on the use of code 55 can be found in the MLN Matters and in the Change Request (CR) 7792

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