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Anesthesia Coding Alert

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Severe Asthma Control Depends on Who Administered Services

Published on Sat May 08, 2010

Question: I'm looking at notes from my anesthesiologist for an encounter with a patient with a severe asthmatic attack. She notes that the patient was already ventilated at the time of status asthmaticus, so the patient was removed from the vent and brought to the intensive care unit (ICU). Apparently the patient was still connected to anesthesia delivery, so the gas used to treat the asthma was delivered via the anesthesia machine. Is there a CPT code for this?Missouri SubscriberAnswer: The correct CPT code for the delivery of the antiinhalation agent would likely be 94640 (Pressurized or nonpressurized inhalation treatment for acute airway obstruction or for sputum induction for diagnostic purposes [eg, with an aerosol generator, nebulizer, metered dose inhaler or intermittent positive pressure breathing [IPPB] device]).You should also check notes from the encounter to determine who actually provided anesthesia services: the surgeon or the anesthesiologist.Assuming it was your anesthesiologist, your [...]
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