ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

Corneal may also call for slit lamp use.A patient reports to the ED with a foreign body in his eye. The ED physician performs foreign body removal (FBR) and the coder chooses the appropriate CPT code for the services. Simple, right?Not so fast: There are several decisions you must make before deciding what type of eye FBR your physician performed, such as eye area and instrumentation. Then, there are several codes to choose from to pinpoint your FBR claim. Follow this expert advice on coding all ocular FBRs your ED physician is likely to encounter.Get to Know 65205-65222Most ED presentations that end in eye FBRs involve one of the following codes:65205 -- Removal of foreign body, external eye; conjunctival superficial65210 -- ... conjunctival embedded [includes concretions], subconjunctival, or sclera nonperforating65220 -- corneal, without slit lamp65222 -- ... corneal, with slit lamp.Consider this: "In my experience, we often used a q-tip wet with sterile saline [...]