Neurology & Pain Management Coding Alert

Question: How do we report when our physician performs two motor NCV and no F tests were done, two sensory NCV tests, one limb EMG testing six muscles, and another limb EMG testing three muscles. How many units of EMG do we report in this case?

New York Subscriber

Answer: You should use the new 2012 CPT® codes for NCV and EMG. For the motor NCV without F wave testing that your physician does, you report 95900 (Nerve conduction, amplitude and latency/velocity study, each nerve; motor, without F-wave study) x2. For the sensory NCV that your physician does, you report code 95904 (Nerve conduction, amplitude and latency/velocity study, each nerve; sensory) x2. For the EMG, you select the codes depending upon whether the EMG done was complete or limited. You report code 95886 (Needle electromyography, each extremity, with related paraspinal areas, when performed, done with nerve conduction, amplitude and latency/velocity study; complete, five or more muscles studied, innervated by three or more nerves or four or more spinal levels [List separately in addition to code for primary procedure])for the EMG testing on six muscles and 95885 (Needle electromyography, each extremity, with related paraspinal areas, when performed, done with nerve conduction, amplitude and latency/velocity study; limited [List separately in addition to code for primary procedure])for the EMG testing your physician does on three muscles on the day he does the nerve conduction studies. You report one unit each for 95886 and 95885 as you report these EMG codes for each extremity when the testing is done and not for each muscle that is tested. Currently Medicare's 18.0 NCCI edits do not have any bundling edits between any of these four CPT codes. It would not be necessary to append any modifiers to indicate separate diagnostic testing was performed.