Charcharbinx
New
Apprentice CPC here and I have been searching and searching for the answer to this question and am getting conflicting answers. I work in a student health clinic on a college campus and we provide TB testing and vaccines that are required for student programs such as nursing, surge tech, and medical assistant. Students often only use our clinic for these purposes and only see a medical assistant who administers the vaccines or performs the TB test.
When the student sees the MA for the TB test, I code for the skin test with 86580. Upon returning for the read, I have been told to code E/M code 99211. My problem is that most students are not seeing and have never seen one of our nurse practitioners so I do not feel that it is appropriate to use an established patient E/M code 99211 for a TB read done by an MA. We do not bill insurance and only code for tracking purposes but this one is driving me nuts because I want to be accurate in my coding.
When the student sees the MA for the TB test, I code for the skin test with 86580. Upon returning for the read, I have been told to code E/M code 99211. My problem is that most students are not seeing and have never seen one of our nurse practitioners so I do not feel that it is appropriate to use an established patient E/M code 99211 for a TB read done by an MA. We do not bill insurance and only code for tracking purposes but this one is driving me nuts because I want to be accurate in my coding.