Anesthesia Coding Alert

Question: Our anesthesiologist placed a lumbar drain that was left intact for several days. Code 01996 doesn't seem to fit for the follow-up visits. Could we use 99231? Or is there a better option?

Colorado Subscriber

Answer: Both codes for diagnostic and therapeutic lumbar drains carry zero global days: 62270 (Spinal puncture, lumbar, diagnostic) and 62272 (Spinal puncture, therapeutic, for drainage of cerebrospinal fluid [by needle or catheter]). That means as long as documentation supports the level, you can separately report follow-up care. As you suggest, that care likely will fall in the area of 99231 (Subsequent hospital care, per day, for the evaluation and management of a patient, which requires at least 2 of these 3 key components ...).