Cardiology Coding Alert

Question: If my cardiologist attempts to place an LV lead and fails, should I report this?


California Subscriber

Answer: Yes, but you must append an appropriate modifier, such as -53 (Discontinued procedure).

In other words, the cardiologist elected to terminate the procedure. You would apply this modifier to 33224 or33225, depending on whether the cardiologist attempted to add the LV lead to an already implanted device or attempted to add the LV lead to a new device.