CPT 2001 Contains Significant Radiology Coding Changes That Will Affect Your Billing
Published on Wed Nov 01, 2000
As the American Medical Association (AMA) announces CPT Changes for 2001 this month in Chicago, radiology coders will notice significant modifications to diagnostic, therapeutic, and supervision and interpretation codes. A review of the revisions indicates that most of them are intended to make life simpler for radiology coders.
The AMA has changed a lot of wording for clarification and added some important codes, explains Cindy Parman, CPC, CPC-H, co-owner of Coding Strategies Inc., an Atlanta-based firm that supports 1,000 radiologists and 350 physicians from other specialty areas. Its good news for radiology coders, since virtually all of the changes seem useful.
Among the most noteworthy changes are:
clarification of breast biopsy codes,
addition of vertebroplasty codes,
addition of computerized tomography (CT) angiography codes,
modification of designation for number of views taken,
reorganization of magnetic resonance (MR) angiography codes for the head and neck,
addition of with, without, and without followed by with contrast codes for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and
addition of endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) codes.
The modifications will take effect Jan.1, 2001, for Medicare, although it may take longer for other carriers to adopt them. It would be wise for radiology practices and coders to work closely with carriers to determine when to begin implementing the new codes, Parman notes.
Breast Biopsy Codes
There have been a lot of doubts about how to best code specific breast biopsy procedures, Parman says, but CPT Codes 2001 addresses this. There will be little question in the future about which code to assign. There will be a code for percutaneous procedures without imaging and percutaneous procedures with imaging, along with the open incisional codes.
Current codes include 19100 (biopsy of the breast; needle core, [separate procedure]), to describe the percutaneous procedure without imaging, and 19101
( incisional), to describe the open surgical procedure.
These two will be augmented by the following new codes, which describe guidance biopsies and device-assisted biopsies with imaging:
19102 biopsy of breast; percutaneous, needle core, using imaging guidance,
19103 biopsy of breast; percutaneous, automated
vacuum assisted or rotating biopsy device, using imaging guidance.
In addition, CPT 2001 includes a new code to describe image guidance for clip placement during a breast biopsy (19295, image guided placement, metallic localization clip, percutaneous, during breast biopsy [list separately in addition to code for primary procedure]). This code [...]
