Don't lose $$ over negative results.Stool testing for patients with diarrhea might involve screening, cultures, and/or antigen tests. Follow our experts' tips to help you sort through the lab methods and payer coverage rules to make sure you're not leaving [...]
AMA reinstates 'per-plate' coding instructionYou just adjusted your stool culture coding to accommodate CPT 2004 changes, and now the AMA errata send you back to the old way. Once again, you can bill separately for each additional stool culture plate [...]
Case study: Test yourself by coding from culture to treatment Stool cultures can be as simple as one plate/one code, or as complicated as multiple plates with additional identification and susceptibility tests. Try your hand at stool cultures by coding [...]
Think again: you can no longer code per plateThe 2004 Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) looks promising for stool culture -- the CPT 87046 national limit payment increased from $3.36 in 2003 to $13.52. But the old payment was for [...]
Then use the coding scenarios to test your understanding CPT revised five culture codes this year. By adding "aerobic" to code definitions, among other changes, CPT Codes 2004 clarifies the intent of existing blood, stool and other culture codes. Study [...]
Frustrated microbiologists will rejoice to learn that National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) edits, version 9.1, remove troublesome edit pairs for anaerobic and aerobic stool and "other source" cultures. The Medicare bundling has cost many labs denials for 87075 (Culture, bacterial; [...]
Version 8.0 of the Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) edits went into effect Jan. 1, 2002, and remains active until March 31, 2002. The changes primarily involve microbiology services that are now mutually exclusive code pairs, as well as a list [...]
Although the CPT 2001 revisions, additions and deletions of the microbiology codes for culturing pathogenic organisms (87040-87158) systematized coding based on the culture source, type of organism and level of identification, many pathology Coder have questions about how to use [...]
pathology Coder need to be aware of the significant changes in the microbiology section of CPT 2001 to gain appropriate reimbursement. In updating the codes to more accurately reflect current practice and coding conventions, 32 new codes and 41 revisions [...]
