Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Look ahead to a new way of coding molecular tests.Molecular assay reporting will never be the same when the labors of an AMA CPT® Editorial Panel workgroup come to fruition next year. Let's take a sneak peak toward CPT® 2012 to help you prepare for what promises to be a complete molecular coding overhaul.Don't miss: The changes will apply to molecular assays in "cancer, genetics and histocompatibility," but not "molecular microbiology tests or most cytogenetic assays," according to the workgroup report available at www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/cpt/request-for-molecular-pathology-code-review-andfeedback.pdf.Now You 'Stack' Each StepCurrently, labs report molecular assays using appropriate codes from the range 83890-83914 (Molecular diagnostics; ...). Each code describes a separate technique, such as nucleic acid extraction, gene amplification, or nucleic acid probes.Add them up: Labs bill a single molecular assay by reporting each code (sometimes in multiple units) that describes each step that the lab performs. The AMA workgroup refers to these [...]