Primary Care Coding Alert
Consider Cessation Counseling in This Vaping Versus Smoking Scenario
Question: During a routine wellness exam, the primary care practitioner (PCP) asked a patient if they smoked. The patient insisted they did not smoke, they only vaped. However, the PCP then counseled the patient on smoking cessation for 9 minutes. Do I report a smoking cessation counseling CPT® code if the effort was to get the patient to stop vaping? North Carolina Subscriber Answer: Yes. According to CPT® Assistant Vol 30, Issue 9, you may use smoking cessation counseling codes for vaping cessation counseling. Turn to codes such as 99406 (Smoking and tobacco use cessation counseling visit; intermediate, greater than 3 minutes up to 10 minutes) and 99407 (… intensive, greater than 10 minutes) for counseling related to vaping cessation. Some coders are tempted to use 99408-99409 (Alcohol and/or substance (other than tobacco) abuse structured screening (eg, AUDIT, DAST), and brief intervention (SBI) services …) thinking that vaping falls under the “substance other than tobacco,” but that’s incorrect. That’s because vape products contain nicotine, and that is the substance for which the provider is counseling for cessation.
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Consider Cessation Counseling in This Vaping Versus Smoking Scenario
Question: During a routine wellness exam, the primary care practitioner (PCP) asked a patient if they [...]
