Anesthesia Coding Alert

Question: How should we report a single femoral nerve block (as opposed to a tunneled insertion)?

Maryland Subscriber
  
Answer: The correct code depends on whether your anesthesia provider administered a single or continuous femoral nerve block.

Submit 64447 (Injection, anesthetic agent; femoral nerve, single) for a single injection or 64448 (... femoral nerve, continuous infusion by catheter [including catheter placement] including daily management for anesthetic agent administration) for a continuous femoral infusion.

If your provider also performed anesthesia services on the same date and provided the femoral block for postoperative pain, you will need to append modifier 59 (Distinct procedural service) to the femoral injection code to indicate the block was separate and distinct from the anesthesia service.

Answers to You Be the Coder and Reader Questions were reviewed by Scott Groudine, MD, an anesthesiologist in Albany, N.Y.