Monday, August 2, 2010

CCI 16.2: Impact Your Anesthesia and PM Coding

If you are an anesthesia and pain management coder, the latest CCI 16.2 that went into effect on July 1, contain lots of anesthesia and pain management pairs you should check. And with 11 percent of all active edits affecting anesthesia procedures, you cannot afford to miss any of the changes.

Although the present CPT book does not carry them, you could start using several new codes for paravertebral facet joint injections. Now the latest CCI codes bundle two of the new codes with every anesthesia code and many nerve destruction procedures.

Mutually exclusive edits also hit 0213T-0218T

As part of ME edits, Paravertebral facet joint injection codes 0213T-0218T come into play. The latest CCI edits pair each choice with corresponding codes involving fluoroscopy or CT guidance. Each edit carries a "0" modifier indicator so that you cannot use modifier 59 to override the bundling.

Steer clear of Separate Mepivacaine HCL

Your provider might depend on Mepivacaine HCL for nerve or tendon injections, however you can no longer separately report the medication for some procedures. CCI codes now bundle J0670 with many common injections.

No-go for tele-health reporting

Anesthesia services cover pre- and postoperative visits with the patient. The latest CCI codes clarify that tele-health consultations and follow-ups fall under standard anesthesia services.

For more on the latest CCI codes (http://www.supercoder.com/coders-toolkit/cci/) and how it's going to impact your anesthesia and pain management coding, sign up for a one-stop medical coding website. Such a site will provide you with reimbursement tools like CCI edit alerts that'll help you stay up to date with CCI coding every quarter.

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