Wiki 99204 and cautery done at same visit

[wynonna]

Hi fellow coders:
A patient was referred to us from ER with epistaxis. He came to our ENT office for cautery for epistaxis and MD prescribed a new Rx. for epistaxis.
Can we bill 99204 with 30901 for cautery with modifier 25?
thank you

 

[thranowski]

99204 and 30901 are not mutually exclusive according to NCCI. Usually when I try to submit something like that, I do 99204-25 and 30901-59 using the 59 modifier just in case. I always try to have a different dx for each line, but in this instance I don't think you have that option. IME sometimes having only 1 dx I have more issues than when I have 2 separate ones is the only reason I say that.