# Help on bilateral xrays



## encomma-watson (Jan 6, 2011)

I have a question, I work in a internal medicine office and we do xrays.  Lately in the encounters that I see, we have bilateral hips or bilateral knee xrays.  I know that a 50 modifer need to be on the xray  with lt or rt, am I coding this correctely.  Please help


----------



## munirajarathinavelp (Jan 10, 2011)

The general law for coding bilateral (if same kind and number of views taken bilaterally) X- rays is, take for example BILATERAL KNEE 3 VIEWS EACH, then the coding would be

73562 - 50
or
73562-RT
73562-LT
or
73562 with 2 units.

you can code them with either options, No need of appending RT and LT modifiers when you append 50 modifier.

Hope this helps!


----------



## kbazarte@yahoo.com (Jan 11, 2011)

in addition to the above posts there are some procedures, that bilat is inclusive
i.e. bilat hips 73520 rad exam, hips, bilat, minimum of 2 views, each hip, including ap view of the pelvis.   no modifier needed


----------



## jgf-CPC (Jan 31, 2011)

Depending upon the payor we use RT and LT the most at our centers. Medicare here prefers the 50 mod but then BCBS prefers the Rt and LT


----------

