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Anesthesia Coding Alert

Reader Questions:

Be Sure +99140 Really Is An Emergency

Published on Mon Mar 08, 2010

Question: A patient came to our emergency department with severe abdominal pain. The attending physician diagnosed it as appendicitis, and considered it an emergency case. Yet the patient had been admitted and was in observation for 40 minutes before surgery occurred. Can I use +99140 for this? Alabama Subscriber Answer: Code with 99140 (Anesthesia complicated by emergency conditions [specify] [List separately in addition to code for primary anesthesia procedure]). 99140 is one of four add-on codes which describe qualifying circumstances (QC). These cover complicating factors that can change how your anesthesiologist cares for a patient: The CPT manual makes a note in its description of 99140 defining an emergency as "existing when delay in treatment of the patient would lead to a significant increase in the threat to life or body parts." There are times when your anesthesiologist will report a case as an emergency because the patient was admitted [...]
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