Neurosurgery Coding Alert

Report radiologic supervision and interpretation, but skip bone biopsies.When your neurosurgeon performs a vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty procedure, you'll need to decide if there are additional services you should be coding and reporting. Get the scoop on what you can -- and can't -- separately report.Modifier 26 Gets You Radiology PayYou can report the operating surgeon's imaging for needle positioning and injection assessment during a kyphoplasty or vertebroplasty procedure. You'll use either 72291 (Radiological supervision and interpretation, percutaneous vertebroplasty, vertebral augmentation, or sacral augmentation [sacroplasty], including cavity creation, per vertebral body or sacrum; under fluoroscopic guidance) or 72292 (... under CT guidance), depending on whether the surgeon uses computed tomography (CT) in addition to fluoroscopic guidance.CPT revised these codes for 2006 to use with either vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty. You should be sure to append modifier 26 (Professional service) to the appropriate radiology service code to show that the surgeon provided only the physician component [...]