Primary Care Coding Alert

Here's your guide to success with TPI versus other knee injections.All knee injections -- and coding for them -- aren't created equal, especially when you're coding for trigger points versus a standard joint injection. Keep our experts' top advice on differentiating procedures in mind, and you'll be flexing your coding muscles with correct claims.Report TPI Based on Muscle NumbersPhysicians administer trigger point injections (TPI) to treat painful muscle areas that contain trigger points, or knots of muscle that form when muscles do not relax. The most important factor when coding TPIs is to focus on the number of muscles your physician injects, not the total number of injections. Consider the descriptors for CPT®'s current TPI codes:20552 -- Injection(s); single or multiple trigger point(s), 1 or 2 muscle(s)20553 -- ... single or multiple trigger point(s), 3 or more muscle(s).Example: A runner who is an established patient for your family physician complains of bilateral knee pain [...]