Cardiology Coding Alert

Question: I’m new to cardiology and I don’t understand how to report cardiac catheterization for congenital heart disease. Do these codes differ from the cardiac cath codes for all other conditions? Can you help me?

Florida Subscriber

Answer: Yes. CPT^® categories the codes for cardiac catheterization into two families: one for congenital heart disease and one for all other conditions.

When you report congenital heart disease (CHD) caths, you can look to the following codes:

• 93530 (Right heart catheterization, for congenital cardiac anomalies)
• 93531 (Combined right heart catheterization and retrograde left heart catheterization, for congenital cardiac anomalies)
• 93532 (Combined right heart catheterization and transseptal left heart catheterization through intact septum with or without retrograde left heart catheterization, for congenital cardiac anomalies)
• 93533 (Combined right heart catheterization and transseptal left heart catheterization through existing septal opening, with or without retrograde left heart catheterization, for congenital cardiac anomalies)

If you need to report non-congenital heart disease cath codes, you will look to codes 93451 (Right heart catheterization including measurement(s) of oxygen saturation and cardiac output, when performed)-93461 (Catheter placement in coronary artery(s) for coronary angiography, including intraprocedural injection(s) for coronary angiography, imaging supervision and interpretation; with right and left heart catheterization including intraprocedural injection(s) for left ventriculography, when performed, catheter placement(s) in bypass graft(s) (internal mammary, free arterial, venous grafts) with bypass graft angiography).

Coding tip: Never report 93530-93533 if the patient’s only congenital anomaly is isolated patient foramen ovale (PFO), mitral valve prolapse, bicuspid aortic valve, or anomalous coronary arteries. Instead, according to the CPT^® guidelines, under these circumstances, you should report 93451-+93464 (Physiologic exercise study ...) and +93566 (Injection procedure during cardiac catheterization including imaging supervision, interpretation, and report; for selective right ventricular or right atrial angiography ...) through +93568 (Injection procedure during cardiac catheterization including imaging supervision, interpretation, and report; for pulmonary angiography ...).