Reader Question:
Just Code Cysto, Even With Other Services
Published on Thu Aug 09, 2007
Question: Our anesthesiologist provided service while a patient had a cystoscopy, retrograde pyelogram, urethroscopy and stent placement. How should I code these procedures?
New Hampshire Subscriber
Answer: Despite the surgeon completing several procedures during this session, your anesthesiologist should code for only one. You normally base your code choice on the procedure with the highest number of base units, but each of these procedures ranks three base units.
Since you won't code according to base units for this case, the most appropriate surgical code for the session is 52282 (Cystourethroscopy, with insertion of urethral stent). It crosses to anesthesia code 00910 (Anesthesia for transurethral procedures [including urethrocystoscopy]; not otherwise specified), so that's the code you should submit. You'll still report the total amount of time your anesthesiologist spent on all the procedures during the encounter.
