Present on Admission Indicators

A Present on Admission (POA) indicator is required on all inpatient claims.

• Claims without a POA indicator will be rejected.
• Your reimbursement may be reduced for services that include a diagnosis that was not present on admission.

Indicators

• Y – Diagnosis was present at the time of inpatient admission
• N – Diagnosis was not present at the time of inpatient admission
• U – Documentation is insufficient to determine if condition was present at the time of admission
• W – Unable to determine clinically if the condition was present at the time of admission
• 1 – Facility is exempt from POA reporting
       OR
       Claim is for a healthy newborn
  

Paper claims
On the UB-04, the POA indicator is the eighth digit of Field Locator (FL) 67, Principal Diagnosis, and the eighth digit of each of the Secondary Diagnosis fields.

Electronic claims
Using the 837I, submit the POA indicator in segment K3 in the 2300 loop, data element K301.