Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Solve physician professional pay problem. As CPT® 2013 jettisons 83912 (Molecular diagnostics; interpretation and report), you’ll need to find a new way to capture your pathologist’s professional interpretation of molecular pathology tests. You’ll also need to see what can be done -- if anything -- to capture a similar service performed by a laboratory scientist instead of a physician. That Was Then "When labs used the stacking codes to describe molecular tests, they had the option of reporting 83912-26 (… Professional component) to capture the pathologist’s interpretation," says Peggy Slagle, CPC, billing compliance coordinator at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Medicare paid for this service on the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), meaning that only physicians could charge for the interpretation. CLFS paid, too: But the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule also paid a (lesser) fee for 83912, billed without modifier 26. Labs billed that fee when a PhD or other [...]