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Neurosurgery Coding Alert

CPT 2011:

64479-64484, Debridement Changes Refine Your Pain and Wound Care Reporting

Published on Sat Oct 02, 2010

Extra: Here's how the observation services expansion can eliminate payer coding variations.Transforaminal injections, wound debridement, and observation guideline changes will come into play Jan. 1 and could put your claims in compliance jeopardy if you're not up on what's now included with these services.Remember 3 Injection PointsWhen your neurosurgeon provides transforaminal epidural injections or paravertebral facet joint blocks, you'll need to note some critical factors in the plethora of new guidelines attached to this CPT section for 2011.Fortunately, you can don't have to learn any new codes.1. Imaging guidance is necessary and included in 64479-64484. Without imaging guidance,appropriate needle placement in the correct spinal location would be extremely unlikely, so including guidance in these codes is a logical adjustment. In fact, the AMA and CMS base many edits on the 95 percent performance rule. If 95 times out of a 100 a procedure is done with another procedure, the procedures [...]
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