Ob-Gyn Coding Alert

Question: Can you bill placement of cervical dilators (CPT^® codes 59200 with D & E and 59841), if the dilators were placed 8 hours prior to the procedure on the same day?

California Subscriber

Answer: You can try to bill both 59200 (Insertion of cervical dilator (eg, laminaria, prostaglandin) (separate procedure)) and 59841 (Induced abortion, by dilation and evacuation), but most payers will reject the service, because the ob-gyn performed it on the same day even though these two codes do not show up as bundled. This is because the procedure description specially mentions “dilation.”

You may want to add modifier 59 (Distinct procedural service) to 59200, to be more forthcoming with information.