Wiki Catheter removal

sky

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My doctor is removing tunneled central venous catheters in the office now instead of the out pt. hospital. The CPT code I'm using is "36589" - removal of tunneled central venous catheter without subcutaneous port or pump. I had him look over the code's definition just to make sure that was what he is doing. The problem I'm having is that the claims are being rejected with "for laboratory class CPT, CLIA# is required". Am I using the wrong code? He wants to do these in the office and he does do a lot of them. Can anyone help me out with this?
 
it's done in the procedure room. a little lidocaine, remove it & that's it. we do EVLT's here with no problems billing wise.

what would be the difference between a cath removal & EVLT? should I tell the docs they can't do it here without the CLIA#?
 
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