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Anesthesia Coding Alert

Reader Questions:

Muscle Count Is Key to TPI Coding

Published on Mon Feb 27, 2006

Question: How should I report bilateral trigger point injections in three locations for a Medicare patient because Medicare doesn't recognize modifier 50 (Bilateral procedure)? Should I use modifiers LT or RT instead?


Washington Subscriber
Answer: You should code trigger point injections based on the number of muscles treated, so -left- versus -right- isn't really a factor. So you wouldn't use modifiers LT (Left side) and RT (Right side). The physician's notes should clearly identify the exact muscles injected, so code from that.

Based on the circumstances that you provide, you should report 20552 (Injection[s]; single or multiple trigger point[s], one or two muscle[s]) if the injections were in one or two muscles, or 20553 (... single or  multiple trigger point[s], three or more muscles) for three or more muscles.
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