The Uniform Bill-04 or UB-04 paper claim form which is used for billing, was established to combine all the claim forms which were once used by hospitals, this was to accommodate numerous diagnoses codes. However, the inpatient reporting differs from the outpatient reporting. Inpatient claims can consist of up to 22 diagnosis codes and 6 procedure codes, of the 22 only 1 admitting diagnosis is allowed, while the outpatient claims consist of up to 24 diagnosis codes with 3 of these codes representing the reason for the visit. In addition to inpatient diagnoses reporting, the present on admission (POA) data element is included to substantiate between conditions present at the time of admission and conditions which may cultivate during the patient’s
