Anesthesia Coding Alert

Here’s how you should code the most common categories.

An anesthesia provider often uses multiple lines during complicated heart cases, for different purposes. As a coder, you should be familiar with each type of line and its use.

The most common categories include:

• A Swan-Ganz catheter (93503, Insertion and placement of flow directed catheter (eg, Swan-Ganz) for monitoring purposes) monitors pulmonary artery pressure and measures cardiac output and other cardiovascular functions. Anesthesiologists typically place a Swan-Ganz in patients who have some type of cardiac condition, or whose cardiac function might be compromised prior to or during surgery.
• A central venous pressure (CVP) line (most commonly reported with 36556, Insertion of non-tunneled centrally inserted central venous catheter; age 5 years or older) gives your provider additional IV access to the patient’s central veins. The anesthesiologist usually places a CVP line in the patient’s superior vena cava, and may use it for multiple purposes, including IV fluid delivery, to adjust the patient’s blood volume, or for central drug infusion.
• An arterial line (36620, Arterial catheterization or cannulation for sampling, monitoring or transfusion (separate procedure); percutaneous) monitors and records the patient’s blood pressure.