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Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Reader Questions:

Document Collection Date for Billing

Published on Fri Apr 01, 2005

Question: For blood tests, should our lab report the date of service as the day of the blood draw, or the date that we complete the test?


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Answer: The correct date-of-service for clinical lab tests is the date of the specimen collection, in this case, the blood draw. The only exception is if the lab performs a test on an archived specimen - then you should use the date of the new test, not the original sample-collection date.

Watch out: Outside auditors will check that the draw date (when the physician obtained the specimen) and the date you report the lab service are the same. The HHS Office of Inspector General recently found that some labs were fraudulently recouping extra payment by splitting up lab panels and reporting half the tests on the draw date and the other half on the following day. If your records show various draw dates that differ from billing dates for the same patient, the OIG may question your coding practices.
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