Anesthesia Coding Alert

Test your coding knowledge. Determine how you would code this situation before looking at the box below.  Question: The oral surgeons at our hospital recently asked our anesthesiologists to start performing their patients'histories and physicals (H&Ps) and any necessary lab work or other tests for their dental rehab patients. The patients range from level P1 (Anormal healthy patient) to level P3 (Apatient with severe systemic disease), and some are multi-handicapped. Can these be coded separately? Kentucky Subscriber
Answer: The work you describe would be part of the standard preoperative evaluation for anesthesia, even if the anesthesiologists complete the H&Ps two or three days prior to the procedure. Two of the few times many anesthesiologists bill for this type of work is if the case is cancelled after substantial work has been done, or if they are evaluating a patient for an organ transplant. If your physicians agree to do this work, be sure the oral surgeons are appending modifier -54 (Surgical care only) to their claims instead of billing for the full service.