Hey!

We have a unique scenario:

Patients are discharged from our acute care hospital "bed" and admitted to a "hospice bed" (different encounter numbers) so hospice can be billed. The patient does not leave the bed they are in - nor do they actually leave our hospital.

We continue to provide care for these (now hospice) patients using our physicians, staff, and room- but hospice is billed. Since we are an acute care facility and not a certified hospice facility Discharge code 51 is not appropriate. 

We are creating a hospice order for discharge/ admit to exclude the patients from measures when necessary.

Our Question: We need to know the correct and appropriate discharge status to apply to these patients when we change their encounter form Acute care inpatient to the hospice encounter to issue their new encounter number.

Thanks