Practice Management Alert

G0001 Deleted, Use 36415 Instead

If you're still trying to report G0001, it's time to stop.

In "December's Recipe for Billing Success," we advised you to report G0001 (Routine venipuncture for collection of specimen[s]) for venous blood collection on a Medicare patient, and 36415 (Collection of venous blood by venipuncture) for the same service on a non-Medicare patient (see the December 2004 issue). That advice expired Jan. 1 when CPT 2005 deleted G0001.

Lesson: You should now report 36415 to Medicare for venipuncture services. However, 36416 (Collection of capillary blood specimen [e.g., finger, heel, ear stick]) will remain an invalid code for Medicare.