California Cancer Reporting System Standards Volume I: Abstracting and Coding Procedures for Hospitals
Per SEER Clarification, effective January 1, 2012 forward, Date of first contact is the admission date when the patient was an inpatient or an outpatient at your facility for:
Work-up of suspected cancer
Patient has a suspected cancer. As an inpatient for work-up or first-course treatment, the date of first contact is the date of admission to the facility.
Any part of the first-course treatment for known cancer.
If a patient is diagnosed elsewhere and was seen for preliminary planning for radiation. The patient is sent elsewhere for surgery and does not return for radiation until after a lengthy recovery. The Date of First Contact is the date the patient returned for radiation treatment. The date of the radiation work-up is not the Date of First Contact.
Patients admitted for other causes:
When cancer is an incidental finding for patients hospitalized for another condition, the date of first contact is the date the cancer was first suspected
Autopsy-only cases
Date of first contact is date of death
Inpatient: Enter the first date of admission as an inpatient for the reportable neoplasm, or the actual date when the diagnosis of a reportable neoplasm was made during a hospitalization.
Outpatient: Enter the date first diagnosed, treated, or seen as an outpatient for the reportable neoplasm.
See Sections I.1.6.3 and I.1.6.4 for Coding and Entering Dates. Consult with your software vendor for specific data entry instructions.