Coding Tips:
Rely on 3 Modifiers to Conquer Your Lumbar Puncture Coding Challenges
Published on Sun Jun 24, 2012
Complete documentation is your best support to recoup pay for the additional effort and time.Your lumbar puncture reporting can get tricky when your clinician either takes longer than usual with a difficult puncture or elects to discontinue part of the procedure. The solution? Get your modifier coding on track, whether you're reporting reduced or difficult punctures or punctures done during global periods.Confirm Reduced Procedure Before Adding 52In some situations, your physician or the patient may elect to perform only part of the procedure instead of the entire puncture. If so, you append modifier 52 (Reduced services) to 62270 (Spinal puncture, lumbar, diagnostic) or 62272 (Spinal puncture, therapeutic, for drainage of cerebrospinal fluid [by needle or catheter]) to imply the reduced (not terminated) puncture. "You would report the reduced procedure with a modifier 52, which means that the procedure was partially performed to treat the patient. The physician should also expect [...]