Optometry Coding & Billing Alert

Published on Tue Oct 03, 2006 PDF

Knowing what terminology to look for will help your coding

To correctly code and bill for SLGTs, you need to understand that optometrists get diagnostic images from SLGTs through a variety of technologies.

Remember, however, that regardless of which of the following technologies your optometrist uses, you-ll still report 92135 (Scanning computerized ophthalmic diagnostic imaging [e.g., scanning laser] with interpretation and report, unilateral):

- Confocal laser scanning topography uses simultaneous stereoscopic (confocal) digital video images to produce a three-dimensional image of the eye's posterior chamber and provides a quantitative measurement of the optic nerve head and surrounding retina. Also known as HRT1 or HRT2 (Heidelberg retina tomograph), optic nerve head imaging.

- Scanning laser polarimetry uses a polarimeter to measure linear polarization change and a scanning laser ophthalmoscope to measure the thickness of the nerve fiber layer of the retina. Also known as SLP, GDX, GDx-VCC, nerve fiber analyzer.

- Optical coherence tomography produces high-resolution longitudinal cross-sectional tomographs of the eye's structures. It's similar to a B-scan, only using light instead of sound to produce the image. Also known as OCT, RTA (retinal thickness analyzer).

Note: SLGTs are sometimes referred to as scanning computerized ophthalmic diagnostic imaging (SCODI).