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Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

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Stationary/Mobile Phase Determines Drug Screen Coding

Published on Wed Jan 01, 2003

Test your coding knowledge. Determine how you would code this situation before looking at the box below for the answer.
Question: Our lab performs multiple-drug screening using chromatography. Should we report CPT 80100 for each drug class or for the entire screening? We are unclear on this point because code 80101 specifies "each drug class," but 80100 specifies "each procedure." Washington Subscriber  

     
  Answer: Although the descriptor for 80100 (Drug screen, qualitative; multiple drug classes chromato-graphic method, each procedure) does not clarify coding for multiple-drug-class screening, CPT direction at the beginning of the Drug Testing section does. The instructions state, "For chromatography, each combination of stationary and mobile phase is to be counted as one procedure."

In other words, if you perform one stationary phase but require three mobile phases to identify three drugs by chromatography, report three units of 80100. On the other hand, if you detect multiple drugs using only one stationary phase with one mobile phase, report 80100 only once regardless of the number of drugs identified.
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