Critical Care FAQ

CPT currently defines a critical illness or injury as an illness or injury that acutely impairs one or more vital organ systems such that there is a high probability of imminent or life-threatening deterioration in the patient's condition.

Critical care services are defined as a physician's direct delivery of medical care for a critically ill or critically injured patient. It involves decision-making of high complexity to assess, manipulate, and support vital organ system failure and/or to prevent further life-threatening deterioration of the patient's condition. Examples of vital organ system failure include, but are not limited to:

• central nervous system failure
• circulatory failure
• shock
• renal
• hepatic
• metabolic
• respiratory failure

Medicare and CPT agree on the definition of critical care and what services should be included when reporting critical care time (see FAQ #3). However, currently Medicare and CPT disagree on how critical care time beyond the initial 30–74 minutes should be reported/billed (see FAQ #5).

The duration of critical care services is based on the physician/QHP’s documentation of the total time spent evaluating, managing, and providing care to the critical patient, as well as time spent documenting such activities. During each moment of this accrued total time, the physician/QHP must devote full attention to the particular patient. This time may be spent at the patient’s immediate bedside or elsewhere on the unit, so long as the physician is immediately available to the patient. 

Physician/QHP time for critical care services encompasses time spent engaged in work directly related to the individual patient’s care, whether that time was spent at the immediate bedside or elsewhere. For example, time spent can be at the bedside, reviewing test results, discussing the case with staff, documenting the medical record, and time spent with family members (or surrogate decision makers) discussing specific treatment issues when the patient is unable or clinically incompetent to participate in providing a history or making management decisions. The time involved in activities that do not directly contribute to the treatment of the critical patient may not be counted toward the critical care time. The "critical care accrual clock" pauses when separately reportable procedures or services are performed; these should not be included in the total time reported as critical care time.

The critical care codes 99291 and 99292 are used to report the total duration of time spent by a physician and QHP providing critical care services, even if the time spent by the physician/QHP on that date is not continuous. Non-continuous time for critical care services may be aggregated for a single date. CPT code 99291 is used once a minimum of 30 minutes of critical care services are provided on a given date. It should be used only once per date. Critical care time of less than 30 minutes is not reported using the critical care codes. Such service should be reported using the appropriate E/M code.

Only the time-based critical care codes (99291 and 99292) may be reported for services in the ED. The daily neonatal (99468-99469) and pediatric (99471, 99472, 99475, and 99476) critical care codes are only used in the inpatient setting.

The critical care codes 99291 and 99292 are used to report the total duration of time spent by a physician and/or QHP providing critical care services, even if the time spent by the physician/QHP on that date is not continuous.  Non-continuous time for critical care services may be aggregated for a single date. 

Time spent separately by a physician and QHP may be combined. However, the time counted should not be duplicative. CMS, and as of January 1, 2024, CPT, direct that the provider who furnished the majority of the time is the one who should report the critical care code (see FAQ #15 for more detail).

No, and this is the major difference between Medicare and CPT guidelines. For CPT, code 99291 is used to report the first 30–74 minutes of critical care on a given date. It should be used only once per date. Code 99292 is reported when the total critical care time extends beyond the initial 74 minutes allotted by 99291. If the total critical care time is in the 75-104 minute range, 99292 is reported in addition to 99291. An additional 99292 is reported for each additional 30-minute block of time reached.

For CMS, starting with CY 2023, 99292 can only be reported when the full additional 30 minutes of critical care time has been provided (74 minutes + 30 minutes = 104 total minutes). Please see the below grid for reference:

CPT and CMS coding principles require that when a time-dependent service is performed continuously and crosses over midnight, the time should be accrued for and reported as occurring on the pre-midnight date. However, once the service is disrupted (i.e., becomes non-continuous), then that creates the need for a new initial service on the post-midnight date.  The following examples for critical care are constructed for better contrast, but the coding effects would be similar even if the respective times were hours distant from midnight:

Scenario 1: How would you code a patient who presents to the ED at 2335 on Day 1, with CC services beginning at that time and performed continuously until 0015 on Day 2, with no more CC services performed on Day 2?

Answer: Since 40 minutes of CC was provided crossing midnight, critical care code 99291 would be reported for Day 1.

Scenario 2: How would you code a patient who presents to the ED at 2335 Day 1, with CC services beginning at that time and performed continuously until 0015 on Day 2, at which time continuous CC services are interrupted; CC services are reinitiated at 0130 Day 2, with an additional 65 minutes provided on Day 2 following the re-initiation?

Answer: Critical care 99291 can be reported for Day 1, and a second 99291 for Day 2. 

Be sure documentation demonstrates the relevant circumstances.

Providing medical care to a critical patient qualifies as a critical care service only if both the illness or injury and the treatment being provided meet the above requirements. The physician/QHP, medical record documentation, must provide substantive information:

1. The patient’s condition must meet the definition of a critical illness or injury described above.
2. The total critical care time delivered must be documented and must be a minimum of 30 minutes, exclusive of separately reportable procedure time(s).

Time spent alone by the resident (i.e., performing critical care activities in the absence of the teaching physician) cannot be counted toward critical care time. Only the time spent performing critical care activities by the teaching physician can be counted toward critical care time.

The teaching physician may tie into the resident’s documentation and may refer to the resident’s documentation for specific patient history, physical findings, and medical assessment. However, the teaching physician must still document a statement of the total time the teaching physician personally spent providing critical care, that the patient was critically ill when the teaching physician saw the patient, what made the patient critically ill, and the nature of the treatment and management provided by the teaching physician.

CMS provides the following vignette as an example of acceptable documentation:

• "Patient developed hypotension and hypoxia; I spent 45 minutes while the patient was in this condition, providing fluids, pressor drugs, and oxygen. I reviewed the resident’s documentation, and I agree with the resident’s assessment and plan of care."

See CMS Transmittal 1548 for further details.

Yes, CPT allows for reporting both an E/M service and a critical care service on the same day. Additionally, CPT does not distinguish as to site of service or which service comes first.

Some payers may require the -25 modifier to be attached to the non-critical care EM service (see FAQ #10).

For 2022 CMS changed its prior policy that had disallowed the reporting of both a 9928x code and critical care on the same day. CMS now has a policy that allows the reporting of critical care services that are provided after an ED E/M service is complete, but not the other way around.

In other words, if a Medicare patient presents to the emergency department and receives an ED workup initially supporting ED E/M codes 99281-99285 and later, on the same date, requires critical care services, according to CMS in 2022 the ED physician/QHP can report both the 9928x service and critical care. However, if a patient received critical care services upon arrival, an ED E/M may not be reported by the same physician/QHP in the same group for the same encounter if additional ED services are provided after the patient is stabilized. In the second scenario, only report either the ED E/M service or the critical care service -- but not both.

CMS has designated that modifier -25 be utilized when both 9928x and critical care services are provided on the same date by the same group.

The following services are included in "critical care clock time” when performed during the critical period by the same physician(s) providing critical care and should not be reported separately:

• the interpretation of cardiac output measurements (CPT 93598)
• pulse oximetry (CPT 94760, 94761, 94762)
• chest x-rays, professional component (CPT 71045, 71046)
• blood gases, and collection and interpretation of physiologic data (e.g., ECGs, blood pressures, hematologic data)
• gastric intubation (CPT 43752, 43753)
• transcutaneous pacing (CPT 92953)
• ventilator management (CPT 94002-94004, 94660, 94662)
• and vascular access procedures (CPT 36000, 36410, 36415, 36591, 36600)

Any services performed that are not listed above may be reported separately.  (See FAQ #12)

Medicare bundles the same services included in critical care by CPT (see FAQ #11) when performed by the same physician(s) reporting critical care. Starting in 2022, CMS requires modifier “FT” be appended for procedures with a global period and a -25 modifier for an E/M service unrelated to the procedure.

The "critical care accrual clock" pauses when performing non-bundled, separately billable procedures.  In other words, time spent performing these procedures should not be included in the total critical care time reported.  Examples of common procedures that may be reported separately for a critically ill or injured patient include (but are not limited to):

• CPR (92950) (while being performed)
• Endotracheal intubation (31500)
• Central line placement (36555, 36556)
• Intraosseous placement (36680)
• Tube thoracostomy (32551)
• Temporary transvenous pacemaker (33210)
• Electrocardiogram - routine ECG with at least 12 leads; interpretation and report only (93010)
• Elective electrical cardioversion (92960)

This list is not exhaustive but merely provides examples of separately billable procedures that may be reported in addition to critical care.

CPT does not require the use of the -25 modifier when billing for critical care services and separately billable (i.e., non-bundled) procedures. However, critical care services provided to a patient may not be paid by some payers (e.g., Medicare) on the same day the physician/QHP also bills a non-bundled procedure code(s) unless critical care is billed with the CPT modifier -25 to indicate that the critical care is "a significant, separately identifiable E/M service above and beyond the other service provided or beyond the usual preoperative care associated with the procedure that was performed."

For such payers, when services such as endotracheal intubation (CPT code 31500) and CPR (CPT code 92950) are provided, separate payment may be made for critical care in addition to these services if the critical care was a significant separately identifiable service, and it was reported with modifier -25. The time spent providing these unbundled services is excluded from the determination of the time spent providing critical care.

Yes, as long as the respective requirements for each service are satisfied and evident from the medical record. Both CPT and Medicare agree on this point.

CPR (CPT 92950) is a non-E/M service encompassing such activities as performing or supervising chest compressions, adequate ventilation of the patient (e.g., bag-valve-mask), etc. As a separately reportable service with Critical Care, the time spent providing CPR cannot be counted toward calculating total Critical Care time.

For 2022, CMS released new language for a shared critical care visit between a PA/NP (QHP’s) and the emergency physician allowing the total time between the providers to be combined. To accurately reflect the acuity of a patient and care delivered, physicians and QHP’s should consider documenting their personal CC time, even if it was less than 30 minutes. The provider who furnished the majority of the time is the one who should report the critical care codes. For “split or shared visits,” both CPT and Medicare state the provider who provides the majority of CC time should report the critical care services.

Additional References

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Internet Only Manual, Publication100-04, Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 12, Sections 30.6.9 & 30.6.12 (A-J)

R2997CP.pdf (cms.gov)