Anesthesia Coding Alert

Question: If a femoral catheter is inserted by an anesthesiologist on the day of surgery, with no meds put in, and the pain physician injects the meds into the catheter two days later, can the pain physician bill for it? If so, what code would I use?

Michigan Subscriber

Answer: Femoral blocks used to have a 10-day global period, but currently have zero days associated with the  procedure. CPT does not include a code for administering an injection via a pre-existing femoral catheter, so you should turn to subsequent hospital care codes to report management of the patient's acute pain. Your best choice is 99231 (Subsequent hospital care, per day, for the evaluation and management of a patient, which requires at least 2 of these 3 key components: a problem focused interval history; a problem focused examination; medical decision making that is straightforward or of low complexity).