Question: When our neurologist performs a complete transcranial Doppler study (TCD), they sometimes also perform a vasoreactivity study or emboli detection. What is the best way to report these services that are additional to the TCD?
Nebraska Subscriber
Answer: Reporting, and getting paid for, these services just got a whole lot easier in January.
According to the January 2025 CPT® Assistant article “Reporting New Transcranial Doppler Study Codes (93896-93898),” CPT® made changed to the Cerebrovascular Arterial Studies subsection because CPT® thought “a coding solution was necessary to eliminate the duplicate reporting of services when a complete transcranial Doppler (TCD) study is performed with a vasoreactivity study, with an emboli detection but without intravenous microbubble injection, or with a venous-arterial shunt detection with intravenous microbubble injection.”
2025 changes: In order to eliminate duplicity when reporting TCDs with any of the above-mentioned studies, CPT® introduced these codes for 2025:
Note: According to CPT®, you can only report these codes in conjunction with 93886 (Transcranial Doppler study of the intracranial arteries; complete study). With the creation of +93896, CPT® deleted 93890 (Transcranial doppler study of the intracranial arteries; vasoreactivity study) for 2025.
1 more thing: CPT® 2025 also revised a code in the TCD family: 93893 (Transcranial Doppler study of the intracranial arteries; venous-arterial shunt detection with intravenous microbubble injection). Last year, the descriptor for 93893 was “Duplex scan of extracranial arteries; emboli detection with intravenous microbubble injection.”
Chris Boucher, MS, CPC, Senior Development Editor, AAPC
