Choosing for Tympanostomy Anesthesia

Question: I’m looking for the anesthesia code for a tympanostomy of the left ear, performed on a 10-month-old child. What’s the correct choice? Answer: The correct code is 00126 (Anesthesia for procedures on external, middle, and inner ear includin...

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3 Steps to Keep Discontinued Procedure Claims Moving

You often turn to modifier 53 (discontinued procedure) when your anesthesiologist or the surgeon sees some risk that could threaten the patient’s health if the procedure continues.   However, Payers do recoil when it comes to reimbursing these claims.  Here are three easy steps by the experts to help you to get on the right track for reimbursement.

1) Conquer Electronic Filing Challenges

Gone are the days when you were told to submit paper claims reporting modifier 53 so you can append a written explanation with the claim.  With HIPAA and electronic standards, you can do the billing electronically.  Once you have billed electronically with modifier 53, the payer might request more information.  Thus the note should contain all the information the carrier needs.  For failed procedure, the record should state the reasons for the failure.  If your physician discontinued the procedure due to the patient’s condition, the record should detail what factors prevented the procedure from going forward.

2) Verify the Timing of Cancellation

Knowing exactly when the case was canceled in terms of the physician’s work will help guide your code choices.  If the physician cancels the procedure after induction, the case technically became a surgical procedure.  Determine the correct surgical code, such as 45380 for a colonoscopy with biopsy.  Then cross to the correct anesthesia code, such as 00810.  If the cancelled procedure took place in an outpatient hospital or ambulatory surgical center, some payers require modifier 73 or modifier 74.  In those situations, append modifier 73 or 74 to the anesthesia code instead of modifier 53 as modifiers 73 and 74 are specifically for outpatient hospital use.

3) Include the Correct Diagnosis

Indicate the reason for cancellation by reporting the appropriate diagnosis code or codes.   For a patient who experiences syncope while still in the...

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96446 And Dozen Others Join The List of CCI Edits

Effective Jan. 1, 2011, new CPT codes and, inevitably, new Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) physician edits are there for physicians. For version 17.0, “19,822 new edit pairs have been added to the database while 9,778 have been terminated, for a net gain of 10,044 new edit pairs,” according to Frank Cohen, MPA, MBB, of the Frank Cohen Group, in his Dec. 14, 2010, “NCCI Version 17.0 Change Analysis” announcement.

The main edits you want to be sure to watch for are those related to new code 96446 (Chemotherapy administration to the peritoneal cavity via indwelling port or catheter).

The 96446 non-mutually exclusive (NME) edits are largely what you would expect based on other chemotherapy code edits — bundles with E/M, anesthesia, venipuncture and other vascular procedures, for example. You want to be sure to watch which is the column 1 code and which is the column 2 code for these bundles.

CCI places E/M codes 99217-99239 in the column 1 position and 96446 in the column 2 position. On the other hand, CCI places 96446 in the column 1 position and E/M codes 99201-99215 in the column 2 position, as shown below:

Column 1 Column 2
99217-99239 96446
96446 99201-99215

Remember that if you report both codes in an NME edit pair without a modifier, Medicare (and payers who adopt these edits) will deny the column 2 code and pay you only for the column 1 code. The edits in the table above all have a modifier indicator of 1, meaning that you may override the edits with a modifier when appropriate, such as in the case of distinct,...

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Burn Coding: Calculate Total Body Surface Area (TBSA)

Investigate your physician’s documentation to determine the body area percentage actually debrided. Question: My anesthesiologist administered anesthesia for a burn excision on the leg of a middle-aged adult male, but he didn’t give clear notes on the patient’s affected body surface area. How do I code for this? Kansas Subscriber Answer: You will start by coding 01952 (Anesthesia [...] Related articles:

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How Do You Code Sigmoidoscopy with Anoscopy, Biopsy?

Question: Notes indicate that the gastroenterologist performs a rigid sigmoidoscopy; during the encounter, he also performs an anoscopy without anesthesia and three biopsies of the mucous membrane. How should I report this episode? Can I report the exam separately with 46600? Answer: You can report a single code for these three services. On the claim, report 45305 (Proctosigmodoscopy, rigid; with biopsy, single or [...] Related articles:

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