Radiology Coding Alert

Question: Sometimes my physician doesn't clearly document his catheter placement when he performs the kissing balloon technique during peripheral iliac artery angioplasty. Do they usually wind up in the aorta, or do they stay ipsilateral?

Answer: If your physician doesn't make the catheter placement clear, you should always ask him to specify. You should never base your coding on what is most common. The radiologist's documentation will decide your codes.

Term: "Kissing balloon angioplasty" refers to a technique during which the physician angioplasties two arteries at the same time, typically due to an ostial lesion at the point of bifurcation. Physicians use the technique to prevent treatment in one artery from worsening the lesion in the other artery.

Important: When you code for catheter placement, you should base your code selection on the catheter's tip. Sometimes, physicians use a guidewire, which is something that the catheter will ride over. In other words, the guidewires are like train tracks that the doctor will lay down in the arterial system. The catheter glides over the guidewire to get into position. Frequently, the guidewire will be in a more selective position than the actual catheter tip. Therefore, you should base your code on the catheter tip.

If you see that both catheter tips are going into the aorta (which is often the case), you should code this procedure as two units of 36200 (Introduction of catheter, aorta) or two separate line items, such as 36200-LT (Left side) and 36200-RT (Right side), depending on your payer's preference. The reason is that you should code each access site separately. From each access site, the catheter enters the aorta to facilitate the kissing balloon procedure.

Good advice: Your radiologist may not understand the coding difference in selectively moving the catheter into the abdominal aorta as opposed to leaving it in the lower extremities, so consider showing him the dollar difference and pointing out that without proper documentation, you always have to go with the lesser-paying code.

The answers for You Be the Coder and Reader Questions were reviewed by Jackie Miller, RHIA, CPC, senior consultant with Coding Strategies Inc. in Powder Springs, Ga.