Oncology & Hematology Coding Alert

Keep your infusion know-how current by reviewing a significant example update.

When you review the changes in your CPT® 2013 manual, you'll see nearly half a page of chemotherapy administration guidelines marked as new or revised text.

But fear not. Although a large portion of the guidelines for codes 96401-96549 are marked as revised, only a few changes were made. The AMA revised the language to clarify that any qualified health care professional (not just a physician) may provide the work or monitoring required. Remember: The CPT® code set is explicitly neutral on stating which provider types are qualified to report a service. So your practice should be sure to review your specific state scope of practice for each non-physician provider type and review individual payer requirements to determine which providers may perform and bill for specific services.

Facilities Should Factor in This Example

Although the chemotherapy-specific guidelines didn't change much, there is a notable change regarding initial service coding in the 2013 guidelines for "Hydration, Therapeutic, Prophylactic, Diagnostic Injections and Infusions, and Chemotherapy and Other Highly Complex Drug or Highly Complex Biologic Agent Administration."

The revision updates an example for coding multiple infusions performed at a single encounter that spans multiple dates. The multi-day nature of the example and comments in AMA's CPT® Changes 2013: An Insider's View indicate that the example pertains to facility reporting rather than to a typical office administration. But any coder may be interested to see the concept supported by CPT® 2013.

2012: The 2012 guidelines indicate that when services extend beyond midnight, the date of service change is like a reset button, allowing you to report an initial infusion code for the first infusion of the new day. The 2012 example states, "a medication was given by intravenous push at 10 PM and 2 AM, as the service was not continuous, both administrations would be reported as an initial service (96374)."

2013: In 2013, CPT® administration guidelines instead indicate that services that extend from one day to the next should be considered a "single encounter" and coded accordingly, says Kelly C. Loya, CPC-I, CHC, CPhT, Director of Enterprise Risk, Internal Audit, and Compliance for Sinaiko Healthcare Consulting Inc., a reimbursement services division of Altegra Health.

The revised 2013 language reads as follows: "a medication was given by intravenous push at 10 PM and 2 AM, as the service was not continuous, the two administrations would be reported as an initial service (96374) and sequential (96376) as: (1) no other infusion services were performed; and (2) the push of the same drug was performed more than 30 minutes beyond the initial administration."

This concept of using a single initial infusion code per encounter mirrors the new-for-2012 example for continuous infusions lasting beyond midnight. The 2013 example further supports the concept that the encounter, rather than the date of service when administrations are given during an overnight stay, determines when an initial administration code can be used.

'Initial service' assignment take-away: "Be sure to report an initial service only once over the span of a 'single encounter' regardless of the date(s) on which they occurred," says Loya.