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Pulmonology Coding Alert

Breathe Easy Submitting Your Pulmonary Stress Test Claims by Highlighting These 94620, 94621 Differences

Published on Mon Jan 25, 2010

Find out what blood-draw and analysis codes you can report separately. Pulmonary stress tests (PST, a.k.a. exercise testing) come in handy when your pulmonologist wants to evaluate a patient with symptoms of shortness of breath, stridor and/or wheezing that occurs only when exercising. You can pick out one from the two code options that describe a PST, and discern the difference by the amount of equipment a test requires. CPT 94621 (Pulmonary stress testing; complex [including measurements of CO2 production, O2 uptake, and electrocardiographic recordings]) calls for more equipment, but what other clues spell the difference from 94620 (Pulmonary stress testing; simple [e.g., 6-minute walk test, prolonged exercise test for bronchospasm with pre- and post-spirometry and oximetry])? The good news is you can say yes to stressfree PST billing by making the following your SOPs (standard operating procedures). SOP 1: Know When to Use Simple Vs. Complex PST It's a [...]
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