CPT code 99239: Hospital discharge day, more than 30 minutes2026 Medicare rate & RVUs

Medicare pays $106.55 for 99239 nationally in a facility.

Medicare allowed amount for participating (non-QP) physicians, before deductible, coinsurance and claim adjustments. Not a patient’s bill or a hospital charge.

What 99239 covers

This service covers the responsible clinician’s work on the day a patient leaves hospital inpatient or observation care after a stay spanning more than one calendar date. It can include a final examination, discussion of the hospital course with the patient and family, medication reconciliation and prescriptions, instructions for continuing care, coordination with home health, skilled nursing, or follow-up clinicians, and preparation of the discharge summary. Hospitalists, attending internists, family physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants commonly perform this work.

Select 99239 when documented discharge management time on that date exceeds 30 minutes; the work need not be continuous. Record the total minutes and the discharge activities performed. Use 99238 when discharge management takes 30 minutes or less or the time is not documented. The responsible discharging clinician reports the discharge service. A clinician providing a separate, medically necessary hospital visit on the discharge date reports the appropriate hospital E/M code for that encounter, rather than another discharge service.

This summary was written with AI assistance from CMS physician fee schedule data and checked against the CMS billing rules shown here. Rates on this page come directly from CMS files.

Where 99239 pays more and less

The same RVUs, adjusted for each area’s costs. Open a locality for its calculation, history and nearby areas.

109 of 109 payment localities

99239 rates by state

Office rate range in each state. Select a state to see its payment localities.

How the 99239 rate is calculated

Each of 99239’s three RVUs is multiplied by a geographic index (GPCI) for the payment locality, added up, and multiplied by the conversion factor. Drag the indexes or enter a ZIP to see what moves the rate.

Payment rules and modifiers for 99239

99239 has no global surgery period, no multiple-procedure, bilateral or assistant-at-surgery adjustment, and no professional/technical split. What changes the payment is where the service happens: the place of service on the claim decides whether Medicare pays the office or the facility rate.

99239 compared with similar codes

How to choose

99238Hospital discharge30 minutes or less

Both cover hospital inpatient or observation discharge management. Use 99238 for 30 minutes or less, or when time is not documented; 99239 requires documented time exceeding 30 minutes.

99236Hospital careSame-date admission and discharge

99236 covers an eligible same-date admission and discharge selected by high medical decision making or qualifying time. Use 99239 for discharge management after a stay spanning more than one date.

99233Hospital follow-up visitSubsequent day, high complexity

99233 describes a high-level subsequent hospital visit. The clinician responsible for discharge instead reports the discharge management code for that day.

99316Discharge managementMore than 30 minutes

99316 covers discharge management exceeding 30 minutes for a nursing facility patient; 99239 covers hospital inpatient or observation discharge.

Codes related to 99239

Related codes aren’t interchangeable: bill the code that matches the service performed.

Where these rates come from

FeeBase calculates base physician payments from CMS work, practice-expense and malpractice RVUs, adjusted by each locality’s geographic indexes and the conversion factor. Services without a published rate are labeled, never given a made-up amount. Amounts are Medicare allowed amounts before claim adjustments: not a patient’s bill or a commercial rate.

CMS RVU26D · effective Oct 1, 2026 through the day before Jan 1, 2027

Open CMS sourceHow we calculate rates