Wiki New Drug-delivery codes for 2020 20700 - 20705

[mindyanna]

Good Morning,

I'm an orthopedic coder and for years we were using the 11981 - 11983 codes whenever a antibiotic rod, knee/hip spacer, or beads were used/removed. Now that they've created these new codes the description says nothing about them having to be non-biodegradable. Does anyone know if this is true for the new codes? Also, if the codes listed in the parenthical is fixed then this does NOTHING for our practice. They can no longer report putting in an antibiotic anything because the list of acceptable codes are so short. We have been waiting for an errata from the AMA on these new codes but have seen nothing yet. There may not be one. I do not have a copy of the AAOS 2020 Global Service for Othopedaedic either so I can't look to see if these new codes are similar to the 11981 series as those were billable with every code. If anyone has the new AAOS books or access to CodeX can you look to see if 20704 hits against 27447 or 27487? We are currently waiting for our access to CodeX but I won't hold my breath on it. Many of these new codes do not hit in CCI but because they are not listed in the parenthical they are being denied. This is a huge RVU loss for our docs.

Thanks to you all in advance!

 

[RebeccaMoney]

I'm confused about these new codes as well. Am I understanding that you can't even use 11981-11983 if my primary code is not listed with the new add-on codes? Any info is much appreciated. Thank you,

 

[mindyanna]

I have since gotten access to Code-X and just like the 11981 - 11983 series the new codes are showing as billable on every code. Unfortunately we are only allowed to use the new codes on the codes listed in the parenthical listed below each code. It also has to be documented that they were created on the back table or however they create them. I wonder why they bothered to create these codes when we can't use them EVER in our practice. Since these codes have insertion and removal codes I believe they have to be something that will eventually be taken out and not absorbable. Our physicians use Stimulan which is an absorbable material when making their beads. It is what it is, the AMA wasted their time on creating these codes and wasted our time trying to decipher what we can and cannot do with them.