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POS 23: Emergency Room – Hospital

POS 23 is the CMS place of service code for Emergency Room – Hospital, defined as a portion of a hospital where emergency diagnosis and treatment of illness or injury is provided. On Medicare professional claims paid under the physician fee schedule, POS 23 takes the facility rate (Pub. 100-04, chapter 26).

Compiled from CMS files by the QuickIntell RCM Editorial Team · Data effective · Method: reference methodology · Report a data correction

Data currency: CMS Place of Service code set: CMS page last modified February 17, 2026; code table updated May 2, 2024 (effective August 1, 2024). Next CMS release: no fixed schedule (CMS posts new place of service codes on its code set page, usually months before Medicare's effective date).

Place of service code
23
Medicare fee schedule rate
Facility rate
Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5
In effect since
Before 2003
Reported on
Professional claims
CMS-1500 item 24B or the 837P
Setting group
Hospital inpatient, outpatient and emergency department

CMS definition of POS 23

A portion of a hospital where emergency diagnosis and treatment of illness or injury is provided.

CMS Place of Service code set, Emergency Room – Hospital

POS 23 is one of the long-standing codes that CMS lists without a date, meaning it was in effect on or before January 1, 2003 (Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5).

Facility or non-facility rate for POS 23

Medicare pays a physician fee schedule service billed with this code at the facility rate. The facility rate carries a smaller practice-expense component than the non-facility rate, because in a facility setting the facility, not the practitioner, bears the cost of the room, the staff and most supplies; where the facility is a Medicare provider it is paid for those costs on its own claim.

Chapter 12, section 20.4.2 of the Medicare Claims Processing Manual lists this setting as “Emergency Room-Hospital” on its facility list. The rule behind the list is that the code reflects where the beneficiary received the face-to-face service, except that services to a registered hospital inpatient or outpatient are paid at the facility rate wherever the encounter took place.

The manual names POS 23 as the code a practitioner may report for a patient registered in the emergency room, a more specific choice than the minimum POS 19 or 22 for hospital outpatients; it is paid at the facility rate (chapter 26, section 10.5).

Not every service has two rates: when the facility and non-facility amounts are the same, as they are for the professional component of a diagnostic test, the place of service does not change the payment. Outpatient therapy and comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facility services are always paid at the non-facility rate.

Denials when POS 23 does not fit the claim

A place of service that conflicts with the procedure, the patient's registration or the payer's policy comes back with one of three codes. Claim adjustment reason code 5 means the procedure code or bill type is inconsistent with the place of service; reason code 58 means the payer considers the setting inappropriate or invalid for the service; and remark code M77 marks a missing, incomplete, invalid or inappropriate place of service. Medicare returns a line whose POS is missing, unassigned or incompatible with a site-specific procedure as unprocessable with CARC 16 and M77, so the fix is a corrected claim rather than an appeal (Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.6).

Where QuickIntell fits with place of service

QuickRCM covers eligibility, claim readiness, denials, posting and A/R with configurable automation and human review, the stage where the place of service code is checked against the setting, the registration and the modifier before the claim goes out, and where CARC 5, CARC 58 and M77 denials are worked.

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Frequently asked questions

What is place of service code 23?

POS 23, Emergency Room – Hospital, is defined by CMS as follows: A portion of a hospital where emergency diagnosis and treatment of illness or injury is provided. POS 23 is one of the long-standing codes that CMS lists without a date, meaning it was in effect on or before January 1, 2003 (Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5). It sits in the hospital inpatient, outpatient and emergency department group with POS 19, POS 21 and POS 22.

Does POS 23 pay the facility or the non-facility rate?

The facility rate. Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5 designates POS 23 F, so a physician fee schedule service billed with it is paid at the facility rate, the lower practice-expense amount paid when the setting rather than the practitioner carries the cost of space, staff and supplies. Chapter 12, section 20.4.2 lists it as "Emergency Room-Hospital" on the facility list. Services whose two rates are equal, such as the professional component of a diagnostic test, pay the same either way (chapter 12, section 20.4.2).

When should a claim use POS 23?

The manual names POS 23 as the code a practitioner may report for a patient registered in the emergency room, a more specific choice than the minimum POS 19 or 22 for hospital outpatients; it is paid at the facility rate (chapter 26, section 10.5).

Sources

Every figure on this page is taken from the CMS publications below, as released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Projection built 2026-10-10. Verify against the primary file before billing or contracting decisions. The reference methodology explains how each figure is computed from these files.

Disclaimer

The definition is reproduced from the CMS Place of Service code set; the Medicare rate and instructions are from Pub. 100-04, chapters 12 and 26. Medicaid and commercial plans publish their own place of service rules. Not legal, clinical or billing advice.

Found a figure that does not match the CMS file? Report a data correction with the CMS file and the value you expected; the request reaches the editorial team through the contact form.