Obstetric Anesthesia
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The autocoder codes obstetric anesthesia cases into the 01958-01969 range. This range covers labor epidurals, cesarean delivery anesthesia, and related obstetric services. Every case that lands in this range also gets a review alert, because obstetric billing carries rules that other anesthesia cases do not.
The autocoder reads the anesthesia record, the labor and delivery notes, and any epidural placement note. It then selects one primary obstetric anesthesia code and pairs it with the delivery procedure on the claim line.
Common outcomes:
The autocoder corrects two patterns that make obstetric claims look wrong.
Labor analgesia time is the part coders check most. The autocoder carries the documented neuraxial placement time and the anesthesia coverage periods onto the obstetric lines. It does not decide your payer's time-unit or flat-fee policy. Confirm the billed time against your payer rules on every obstetric case.
Payment modifiers on a CRNA-placed 01967 line follow your facility configuration, not a hardcoded obstetric exception.
| Configuration | Result on a CRNA-alone 01967 line |
|---|---|
medicalDirection.enabled is false | The autocoder assigns the provider and adds no payment modifier. Your downstream process supplies it. |
medicalDirection.scenarios.crnaAlone is hardstop | The autocoder adds no QZ and raises the med_dir_crna_alone_hardstop alert (HARDSTOP, severity 10). |
medicalDirection.scenarios.crnaAlone is bill_qz (shipped default) | The autocoder adds QZ and raises the med_dir_crna_alone_qz alert (INFORMATIONAL, severity 3) as an audit trail. |
Contact your Hank representative to change this behavior.
ob_case_review, HARDSTOP, default severity 2) fires on every obstetric case in the 01958-01969 range. It asks a coder to confirm code selection, time handling, and modifiers. Read OB Case Review Alert for the full recipe.ob_addon_without_primary, HARDSTOP, default severity 9) fires when the claim carries 01968 or 01969 with no 01967 line. It asks a coder to add the labor epidural line or to recode the case with a standalone cesarean code. This check always runs and is not configurable.What happens next depends on how your organization consumes HANK CODES. In HANK Claim Maker, a HARDSTOP alert places the claim in the review queue your administrators configured for it. Organizations that consume the coding API directly decide in their own workflow which alerts pause a claim, who reviews them, and when a claim is released.