Internal Medicine Coding Alert
Use 87086 and 87088 for Urine Culture
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Question: The internist obtained a Medicare patient's urine culture for suspected urinary infection. Which CPT and ICD-9 codes will Medicare accept? Answer: You should report either 87086 (Culture, bacterial; quantitative colony count, urine) or 87088 (... with isolation and presumptive identification of isolates, urine), depending on how your internist performed the test. As for appropriate ICD-9 codes for urine cultures, you should first check the internist's documentation for the physician's diagnosis. Generally, however, Medicare accepts the following diagnosis codes:
Georgia Subscriber
Usually, a physician performs a urine culture with colony count (87086) to determine the approximate number of bacteria present per milliliter of urine. When you bill 87088, the doctor has generally used a commercial kit to identify additional, significant bacteria.
Also, to medically justify reporting the codes, you should meet the following Medicare criteria:
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