Ophthalmology and Optometry Coding Alert

Question: A patient came to our practice for a visual field test. He didn’t see any of our physicians and our tech sent the test results back to his physician. What service can we bill (if anything)?

Answer:  You can collect for your technologist’s service if you append modifier TC (Technical component) to the appropriate visual field code (92081-92083). The physician who interprets the results will append modifier 26 (Professional component) to the code for his portion of the claim.

In some cases, the patient will present to your practice with results from a visual field test performed elsewhere. If your ophthalmologist interprets these results, you’ll flip the coding from the above scenario and you’ll append modifier 26 to the visual field code and the practice that actually performed the test will append modifier TC to it.