Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Professional associations go to bat for audiology coders. If your physician performs cochlear implants, you're probably familiar with the codes for when an audiologist programs and reprograms the devices about a month after the surgery. In recent years, physicians have performed a growing number of bilateral cochlear implants. You may report 69930 (Cochlear device implantation, with or without mastoidectomy) with modifier 50 (Bilateral procedure). But what about the audiologist's initialization and programming? That's a question that's been bugging Charmaine Munt, field reimbursement manager at Advanced Bionics LLC, a Sylmar, Calif., manufacturer of cochlear implants. Munt has been hearing concerns from audiologists about coding for the programming when the procedure is bilateral. It's "a very confusing topic, which appears to be a very gray area," she says. The problem: The programming codes can't be reported as binaural. Codes Haven't Caught Up With Practice "Audiology codes are typically bilateral," says Debbie Abel, [...]