Otolaryngology Coding Alert

Reporting vestibular testing has become a one or all proposition. If you are used to picking and choosing which electronystagmography (ENG) tests apply to your patient -- and getting reimbursed for each of them -- you may not like the changes 2010 has brought to bear on vestibular testing. Read on for the skinny on what you can report, and the limitations you may face, when treating patients with balance disorders. Catch Up on the ENG Catch-All Code Starting in 2010, four ENG tests are bundled into a single CPT code: 92540 (Basic vestibular evaluation, includes spontaneous nystagmus test with eccentric gaze fixation nystagmus, with recording, positional nystagmus test, minimum of four positions, with recording, optokinetic nystagmus test, bidirectional foveal and peripheral stimulation, with recording, and oscillating tracking test, with recording). Slant: Streamlining is not always a welcome change. Forcing these four tests into a bundle is "not the way clinical practice [...]