READER QUESTIONS:
Few Need to Add 94011-94013 to Charge Tickets
Published on Mon Jan 04, 2010
Question: I noticed that CPT 2010 includes new spirometry codes. We're a general pulmonary practice. Should I add those codes to my superbill? Illinois Subscriber Answer: No, codes 94011-94013 are for infant pulmonary function testing. "There are only about 30 pediatric pulmonologists who could do that testing until technology changes," said Scott Manaker, MD, PhD, American College of Chest Physicians Relative Value Update Committee representative at the AMA CPT and RBRVS Annual Symposium in Chicago. "A pediatric pulmonologist usually does the test, but a general pediatric pulmonologist or pulmonologist often orders the test." The tests are done only in children up to age 2. Before this age, the patient can't cooperate with standard adult spirometry, so pediatric pulmonologists needed specific codes for these tests, Manaker explains. The first two codes in the set (94011, Measurement of spirometric forced expiratory flows in an infant or child through 2 years of age; [...]
