Wiki Bilateral xray

[nc_coder]

We did a bilateral hand xray. The description of the code does not say anything about bilateral. Does anyone know if it is ok to file a modifier 50 with 73120?

 

[dballard2004]

I will wager an opinion here.

I think this will be payer specific. Medicare will accept modifier 50 for bilateral x-rays, but it can vary with commercial payers. You may need to add LT and RT instead.

Unless you have specific guidance from the payer here, I would lean towards the conservative side and bill LT and RT just to be safe. So, you would report:

73120 LT
73120 RT

Hope this helps and again this is my opinion.