3. CPT codes 76942, 77002, 77003, 77012, and 77021 describe radiologic guidance for needle placement by different modalities. CMS payment policy allows one unit of service for any of these codes at a single patient encounter regardless of the number of needle placements performed. The unit of service for these codes is the patient encounter, not number of lesions, number of aspirations, number of biopsies, number of injections, or number of localizations
Above is the statement from the NCCI policy manual, below is from AMA CPT Assistant, which states the repeat reporting of 76005 (now 77003) would only be valid if there were 2 separate procedures that were performed in two separate spinal regions.
September 2004 page 1
The Facets of Paravertebral Facet Joint Procedures (64470-64476, 64622-64627)
Coding Tip
Code 76005 is intended to be reported per spinal region (eg, cervical, lumbar) and not per level.