Anesthesia Coding Alert

Hint: You’ll find them all in Category II or III sections.

The American Medical Association has released its first version of CPT^® code changes for 2014, and several pertain directly to anesthesia providers. More details and comments from our experts will follow in future issues of Anesthesia Coding Alert, but read on for a quick first look.

New Codes Focus on Location, Type of Anesthesia

You’ll have six new Category II possibilities to report in certain situations: 

• 0581F — Patient transferred directly from anesthetizing location to critical care unit (Peri2) [ASA]
• 0582F — Patient not transferred directly from anesthetizing location to critical care unit (Peri) [ASA]
• 4554F — Patient received inhalational anesthetic agent (Peri2) [ASA]
• 4555F — Patient did not receive inhalational anesthetic agent (Peri2) [ASA]
• 4559F — At least 1 body temperature measurement equal to or greater than 35.5 degrees Celsius (or 95.9 degrees Fahrenheit) recorded within the 30 minutes immediately before or the 15 minutes immediately after anesthesia end time (Peri2) [ASA]
• 4560F — Anesthesia technique did not involve general or neuraxial anesthesia (Peri2) [ASA]. 

Delete T Codes for Neonatal Hypothermia

CPT^® 2014 deletes two Category III codes you might have used for hypothermia in neonates:

• 0260T — Total body systemic hypothermia, per day, in the neonate 28 days of age or younger;
• 0261T — Selective head hypothermia, per day, in the neonate 28 days of age or younger.

When your anesthesia provider brings a neonate’s body to hypothermic levels during procedures, you might still be able to include qualifying circumstances code +99116 (Anesthesia complicated by utilization of total body hypothermia [List separately in addition to code for primary anesthesia procedure]). Although every payer doesn’t increase your reimbursement for using qualifying circumstances codes, they do add another bit of documentation showing additional complexity from an anesthesia perspective.

Ensure You Understand 00100

Although not part of the AMA’s list of new and revised codes, clinician notes include more specificity for 00100 (Anesthesia for procedures on salivary glands, including biopsy). The clinical descriptor moving into 2014 is “Anesthesia for procedure on salivary gland with biopsy.”

Next month: Our experts weigh in on why they think these codes were added and how you’ll use them.