Anesthesia Coding Alert

Question: My anesthesiologist wants to bill for IV placement in this scenario: Sometimes patients are in labor and delivery without an epidural. If the nurses can't get an IV placed, the OB physician orders an anesthesia consult for difficult IV access. Can we bill for an IV placement and epidural if needed hours later? Tennessee Subscriber Answer: You can bill only for the epidural placement, not the IV. The IV will be included in the global anesthesia fee. If you bill an IV and an anesthetic on the same day, it may appear as if you are unbundling bundled services. The Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) edits state, "Physicians should not unbundle the anesthesia procedure and report component codes individually. For example, introduction of a needle or intracatheter into a vein (36000), venipuncture (36410), or drug administration (90760-90775) should not be reported when these services are related to the delivery of [...]