Oncology & Hematology Coding Alert

Question: We put patients on an ambulatory infusion pump with normal saline for overnight infusion. Can we bill any kind of infusion code with this?

Texas Subscriber

Answer: You won't find a specific code to describe when your physician sends a patient home for prolonged infusion of a nonchemotherapy substance with a portable pump. As a result, you have to report an unlisted-procedure code -- 90779 (Unlisted therapeutic, prophylactic or diagnostic intravenous or intra-arterial injection or infusion).

Location matters: If your physician orders this procedure to be performed in the hospital rather than in the physician's office, the hospital will report the prolonged infusion.

Note: When a portable pump is connected in the hospital outpatient department for the delivery of a non-chemotherapy agent, the code billed by the hospital is C8957 (Intravenous infusion for therapy/diagnosis; initiation of prolonged infusion [more than 8 hours], requiring use of portable or implantable pump).