Radiology Coding Alert

Question: We have a new interventional radiologist who will be performing uterine fibroid embolism. What CPT Codes will I need to know for this procedure?


Arizona Subscriber

Answer: You're most likely to report:

• 36247--Selective catheter placement, arterial system; initial third-order or more selective abdominal, pelvic, or lower-extremity artery branch, within a vascular family. Your payer may ask you to report two units, add modifiers RT (Right side) and LT (Left side), or add modifier 50 (Bilateral procedure) to indicate catheterization of the right and left uterine arteries.

• 37204--Transcatheter occlusion or embolization (e.g., for tumor destruction, to achieve hemostasis, to occlude a vascular malformation), percutaneous, any method, non-central nervous system, non-head or neck.

• 75894--Transcatheter therapy, embolization, any method, radiological supervision and interpretation. Report this code only once.

• 75898--Angiography through existing catheter for follow-up study for transcatheter therapy, embolization or infusion. You may report this code once per side for "completion" angiography. If more than one completion angiogram is needed (an infrequent occurrence), the report should document exactly why.

Resource: Read the Society for Interventional Radiology's recommendations on UFE coding at www.sirweb.org/codeReim/codingRecommendations.shtml.