6 must-know coding updates in 2020

Becker’s ASC Review compiled a timeline of significant medical coding updates that have been proposed or implemented so far this year:

January

CMS began paying for certain angioplasty and stenting procedures in ASCs on Jan. 1, under its 2020 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and ASC Payment System Final Rule. Here are the Current Procedural Terminology codes for three coronary intervention procedures and three associated add-on procedures that CMS added to the ASC Covered Procedure List for 2020:

92920: Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty; single major coronary artery or branch
92921: Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty; each additional branch of a major coronary artery (list separately in addition to code for primary procedure)
92928: Percutaneous transcatheter placement of intracoronary stent(s), with coronary angioplasty when performed; single major coronary artery or branch
92929: Percutaneous transcatheter placement of intracoronary stent(s), with coronary angioplasty when performed; each additional branch of a major coronary artery (list separately in addition to code for primary procedure)
C9600: Percutaneous transcatheter placement of drug eluting intracoronary stent(s), with coronary angioplasty when performed; single major coronary artery or branch
C9601: Percutaneous transcatheter placement of drug-eluting intracoronary stent(s), with coronary angioplasty when performed; each additional branch of a major coronary artery (list separately in addition to code for primary procedure)

May

Early in the pandemic, Anesthesia Business Consultants’ coding teams captured a wide range of diagnoses used for COVID-19 patients and “COVID-like” patients whose virus status wasn’t definitively known, President and CEO Tony Mira said in a May 11 newsletter. Nineteen codes used for COVID-19 patients, in order of frequency for clients in ABC’s database:

U07.1: COVID-19
R06.03: Acute respiratory distress
J96.90: Respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
J96.00: Acute respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
I46.9: Cardiac arrest, cause unspecified
J96.01: Acute respiratory failure with hypoxia
J98.8: Other specified respiratory disorders
J98.9: Respiratory disorder, unspecified
J96.91: Respiratory failure, unspecified with hypoxia
R09.02: Hypoxemia
B97.29: Other coronavirus as the cause of diseases classified elsewhere
J95.859: Other complication of respirator (ventilator)
R09.2: Respiratory arrest
Z20.828: Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral communicable diseases
R06.89: Other abnormalities of breathing
J18.9: Pneumonia, unspecified organism
J96.10: Chronic respiratory failure, unspecified whether with hypoxia or hypercapnia
I50.9: Heart failure, unspecified
R06.00: Dyspnea, unspecified

July

CMS published 11 CPT Category III codes that took effect July 1 in the ASC payment system. The agency also made updated payment rates available for download. The new codes are:

0594T
0596T
0597T
0598T
0600T
0601T
0614T
0616T
0617T
0618T
0619T

Click here for a description of each code.

August

CMS released the 2021 proposed payment rule for hospital outpatient departments and ASCs on Aug. 4. The agency proposed removing 300 musculoskeletal procedure codes from the inpatient-only list over a three-year period, including 67 spine codes for 2021.

CMS also indicated it would consider changing how procedures are added to the ASC-payable list. For 2021, the agency proposed including these 11 codes:

0266T
0268T
0404T
21365
27130
27412
57282
57283
57425
C9764
C9766

September

The American Medical Association released the 2021 CPT code set on Sept. 1, giving healthcare organizations four months to prepare. If adopted as-is on Jan. 1, 2021, the code set will include 206 new codes, 54 deletions and 69 revisions, for a total of 329 editorial changes.

October

The CDC’s ICD-10-CM code update for fiscal year 2021 went into effect Oct. 1 with 57 new musculoskeletal codes. Effective through Sept. 30, 2021, the update entails 490 new, 47 revised and 58 invalidated codes, which were all outlined in the CDC’s proposed rule. Several of the new musculoskeletal codes are in the M24 category for other articular cartilage disorders, ligament disorders, pathological dislocation, recurrent dislocation, contracture and ankylosis.

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Photo courtesy of: Medical Coding News

Originally Published On: Becker’s ASC

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