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Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

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88321: You Won't Always Choose the Same Units

Published on Sat Oct 09, 2010

Question: We received slides from an outside institution that are from three separate cases, have three separate accession numbers and are from three separate dates of service. Should we bill 88321 x 3? Nebraska SubscriberAnswer: Yes, you can bill three units of 88321 (Consultation and report on referred slides prepared elsewhere) -- for some payers. The unit of service for "outside" consultations such as 88321 is not the specimen. CPT Assistant, Dec. 2002 states, "[The] unit of service for codes 88321-88325 is considered the surgical pathology case or cytopathology case, which can include multiple specimens for review." Understand 'case': The "case" often links to the "accession" from the referring lab. So a case typically includes all tissue or cytology specimen(s) taken during a single operative session. Having different dates of service is a clear indicator that you're dealing with separate cases. In your question, you have three separate cases (accessions, dates of [...]
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