Oncology & Hematology Coding Alert

Question: Techs employed by our center perform ECGs on certain patients to check for toxicity. A different group provides the interpretation and reports it. How should we report our service?

Virginia Subscriber

Answer: For the services your center performs, you should report 93005 (Electrocardiogram, routine ECG with at least 12 leads; tracing only, without interpretation and report).

Rationale: Although for many codes you would indicate performance of only a portion of the service by appending either modifier TC (Technical component) or 26 (Professional component), that method does not apply for ECGs.

Instead, this family of codes provides separate options depending on whether you perform the entire service (93000, ... with interpretation and report), the technical component only (93005), or the professional component only (93010, ... interpretation and report only).

Caution: Be sure payer agreements include the component codes (93005, 93010) in the payer fee schedule and not just the global code (93000).