Wiki where are the anesthesia billing modifiers in the CPT or HCPCS codebooks?

[The Angel Of the South]

On coding certification exam practice tests, I have always had a problem with the anesthesia billing modifiers--QX, QS, etc.--just because I don't know where they are located in the codebooks. I haven't found them. I found them online at http://www.anesthesiabilling.org/2010/05/anethesia-billing-modifier-qk-qx-and.html, and learned what they mean; but I can hardly use that during the exam. I swear I don't see them in the anesthesia codes.

 

[thomas7331]

CPT modifiers are just the numeric modifiers - those are the only ones that you'll find in the CPT book. Modifiers that use alphabetic characters are HCPCS modifiers and can be found in a HCPCS code reference book or on the HCPCS web site (https://hcpcs.codes/modifiers/). I'm not sure why they don't include these in CPT since many of them are often used in conjunction with CPT coding - it may have something to do with the copyright laws governing the organizations that maintain these codes.

 

[The Angel Of the South]

Thanks. Yeah, I was starting to figure out that HCPCS was the only other place the anesthesia modifiers could be. It was important because my certification exam is tomorrow. Now I see exactly where they are--in the back of HCPCS.