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ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

You Be the Coder:

Slit Lamp Exams

Published on Fri Mar 01, 2002

Test your coding knowledge.  Determine how you would code this situation before looking at the box below for the answer.
Question: A patient recently was seen for an eye injury, and our ED physician conducted a slit-lamp exam. Should we code both the ED visit and the ophthalmologic code?

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            Answer: No, this would not be appropriate. The ED physician's services would be reported simply with the appropriate level of E/M code (99281-99285, Emergency services). This exam is considered comprehensive and would include the slit-lamp exam. Ophthalmological services rendered in other settings would be assigned a code from the 92002-92014 series.
 
However, if the physician used the slit lamp for removing a foreign body from the eye, use 65222* (Removal of foreign body, external eye; corneal, with slit lamp). Because it is a starred procedure, coders could also bill an E/M services with modifier -25 if it is significant and separately identifiable in the chart.
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