CPT^® 87186, Under Antimicrobial Susceptibility Studies

The Current Procedural Terminology (CPT^®) code 87186 as maintained by American Medical Association, is a medical procedural code under the range - Antimicrobial Susceptibility Studies.

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Summary

The lab analyst performs the technical steps to evaluate a culture isolate’s susceptibility, or sensitivity, to multiple antimicrobial agents, commonly called antibiotics, by observing growth of the isolate on various concentrations of each antibiotic using agar dilution or microdilution methods to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration.

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Susceptibility Studies CPT

Any laboratories out there that are performing their Susceptibility Studies via PCR nucleic acid amplification and not by the old methods that would care to share what CPT they are using? I've searche... [ Read More ]

Question regarding negative result Microbiology Culture negative urine culture rectal swab

I just started billing for microbiology cultures for the practice. Currently we are billing positive cultures as follows: Urine - 87077, 87186, and 87187 (if additional sensitivities are done) Rectal... [ Read More ]

Ear swab culture 87070 code culture ear medicare

We have always used 87070 when sending an ear swab for aerobic bacterial culture...starting this month the lab we use is changing this code to 87186 stating Medicare requires we use it. However Medica... [ Read More ]

CCI Issue

When the following codes are billed with 87088 NCCI edits will deny the following codes. 87070 87071 87073 87075 87084 88387 88388 Modifier 59 would be appropriate modifier if two separate cultures a... [ Read More ]

59 vs 91

When a single culture grows multiple organisms and there are multile charges for CPT 87077 (bacterial identification) and 87186 (sensitivity), what modifier should be used ? 59 or 91 ?... [ Read More ]

Lab cultures isolates mic urine cultures

If a urine culture was done and two isolates were preformed with MIC would it be code 87186 X2 or just 87186? I can only use 87187 if it was with 87186 or 88 but 87 states MCL. I think I am over think... [ Read More ]

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