Eli's Rehab Report

Want to bill insurance? Learn critical coding tips here.

Kinesio Taping® is all the rage, especially since the public saw Olympic athletes covered with a plethora of colorful tape designs this summer.

Although it seems to be a recent trend, Kinesio Taping has been around since Dr. Kenzo Kase founded this rehabilitative method in 1979. The idea is to stabilize affected muscles and joints while also allowing range of motion and adding soft tissue manipulation, according to kinesiotaping.com. Kase developed a special elastic tape to accomplish this, Kinesio® Tex Tape, and since then other companies have developed their own brands of Kinesio Tape.

"It's like a prescription in between the treatment sessions," explains Mansi K. Shah, PT, CKTP, PTPN member, with Ally Physical Therapy, in Livonia, MI. "If a patient is coming twice a week, I'll do the taping on Mondays because it helps the patient improve the muscle/joint condition on the two days they're not seeing me -- and patients really see the results of that."

"We've been offering Kinesio Taping for three years," shares Linda J. Zane, PT, MPA, PTPN member with Physical Therapy Institute in Delray Beach, FL. She also vouches for its success and notes that her practice primarily uses it on high school athletes and on soccer and tennis players.

Get Started on the Right Foot

Before you begin, get the proper training as a Certified Kinesio Taping Practitioner (CKTP). "You should be certified because it's crucial how you place the tape, the amount of tension you create, etc. -- everything is skilled because you could cause more harm than help," Shah says.

Smart move: Because of its popularity, advertise that you offer Kinesio Taping®. Zane's practice is gearing up to do a newsletter spot on this service. You'll also want to establish whether Kinesio Taping will be cash-pay or if you'll bill insurance. "We offer Kinesio Taping as cash-pay," Zane says. "It's easily affordable, and patients want it."

"We market to physicians as well as patients that we offer this procedure," Shah says.

Whatever you decide, remember that either you or the patient must pay for the tape. "Some clinics pass the cost of the supplies to the patient," Shah says. "In our clinic, we treat it like electrotherapy or iontophoresis where we bear the cost of the supplies."

Ensure Proper Billing and Coding

Insurance will not pay for Kinesio Taping® by itself, nor is there a CPT® code specifically for the procedure. If, however, you did the taping as part of a skilled, billable rehab service, you may bill it as part of that procedure, according to Rick Gawenda, PT, president and founder of Gawenda Seminars & Consulting.

Example 1: Suppose you applied Kinesio Tape to a patient's patella and then guided the patient through exercises for that knee. "In this case, you would bill the CPT® code for therapeutic exercises," Gawenda explains.

Example 2: You do taping to assist with work on balance, posture, coordination, and proprioception. In this case, you would report the code for neuromuscular reeducation, Gawenda says.

Do not use strapping codes (the 29500 and 29200 CPT® series) for Kinesio Taping®, Gawenda instructs. "Strapping is typically done at the end of a treatment session for a sprain or a strain or a joint that's out of proper alignment" -- and it is a separate, distinct procedure.