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Anesthesia Coding Alert

You Be the Coder:

Adjust Your Coding for Multi-Day Obstetric Patient Service

Published on Mon Mar 08, 2010

Question: One of our anesthesiologists was in attendance for an expectant mother who was in labor, which ran overnight, into a second day. Then her labor stopped, so the ob-gyn scheduled an unplanned cesarean section. I reported the case with +01968 because of the cesarean procedure that occurred on the second day, but the payer denied the claim. What did I do wrong? Massachusetts Subscriber Answer: Some payers will deny +01968 (Anesthesia for cesarean delivery following neuraxial analgesia/ anesthesia [List separately in addition to code for primary procedure performed]), stating you cannot bill it as a stand-alone code. They prefer that you also use 01967 (Neuraxial labor analgesia/ anesthesia for planned vaginal delivery [this includes any repeat subarachnoid needle placement and drug injection and/or any necessary replacement of an epidural catheter during labor]), assigning the date the epidural started as the beginning date of service. To report this multi-day service, [...]
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