Anesthesia Coding Alert

Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) version 14.0 sets its sights on new 2008 codes rather than adding many new edits for your established codes this time around. Best of all, none of these edits should take a serious toll on your reimbursement bottom line.

Here's what you need to know.

The main edits that will affect your anesthesiology or pain management practice involve two new radiological procedure anesthesia codes.

CCI considers 01935 (Anesthesia for percutaneous image guided procedures on the spine and spinal cord; diagnostic) and 01936 (... therapeutic) Column 1 (comprehensive) codes to many of the pain management injection procedure codes (62310-62319 and 64400-64530). Remember: CMS will reimburse you for the column 1 code if the same provider reports both codes for the same date of service.

None of the new edits will help in anesthesia-related coding situations -- but they shouldn't create reimbursement issues for anesthesia coders, either.

"These new edits won't have any significant impact on anesthesiologists' reimbursement," says Kelly Dennis, MBA, CPC, ACS-AP, with Perfect Office Solutions in Leesburg, Fla. "Mainly these updates are to incorporate the coding changes."

Case in point: New 2008 code 99477 (Initial hospital care, per day, for the evaluation and management of the neonate, 28 days of age or less ...) is bundled into a whopping 418 codes, according to Frank Cohen, CMPA, of CPA Health Partners in Clearwater, Fla. In the rare case that you report 99477 with many anesthesia codes, Medicare carriers will reject the 99477 charge.

To receive a chart of the new anesthesia and pain management CCI 14.0 edits, please e-mail the editor at joec@eliresearch.com.