Question: What CPT code should I use for arch taping if patient education was the main focus of the treatment? Reader Questions were answered by Rick Gawenda, PT, director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Detroit Receiving Hospital.
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Answer: You should consider the time that taping the arch actually took, such that you may consider those minutes as part of manual therapy (97140) if you performed any soft tissue mobilization or therapeutic exercise (97110) if you then performed exercise after taping. Some therapists also use neuromuscular re-education (97112) if working on balance or proprioception with the patient.
If you simply taped the arch and educated the patient perhaps on how to tape it himself and provided no other skilled intervention such as therapeutic exercise or neuromuscular re-education, the appropriate CPT code to bill would be 29540 (Strapping; ankle and/or foot).