Otolaryngology Coding Alert

Hint: 94010, 94375 are shoe-ins for bundled status. A workup for possible extrinsic allergic alveolitis (EAA) doesn’t have to leave you reaching for headache medicine. Follow these steps to sort out which codes you should bill and which you should omit. When a patient has a Type III allergic reaction to environmental allergens and develops local inflammation that causes tissue damage, the allergist should diagnose the patient as having a common occupational antigen disease--hypersensitivity pneumonitis, an inflammatory lung disorder that is often referred to as extrinsic allergic alveolitis. The steps that an allergist must take to properly diagnose this disease, however, can lead to complicated coding issues. Several tests that the allergist may order can be useful in diagnosing EAA. See if you can solve this coding conundrum: To test a patient for EAA (495.x), an allergist orders several pulmonary function tests (PFTs), including spirometry (94010), flow volume loop (94375), [...]