Primary Care Coding Alert

New language makes challenging screening bundles easier. If you-ve been lumping immunization and ancillary services into preventive medicine services, you may have been shorting your practice. "We always felt the guidelines had been clear but apparently they were misunderstood," noted Peter A. Hollman, MD, AMA CPT editorial panel vice chair in the "Evaluation and Management Services" session at the CPT and RBRVS 2009 Annual Symposium in Chicago. "They-re very clear now." Here's the skinny on which items you should separately report. Do Well Check Codes Include Vaccine Services? Because CPT 2008's preventive medicine services codes referred to ordering of "appropriate immunization(s)," some insurers thought 99381-99397 included the vaccine product and administration. To eliminate this confusion, the AMA revised 99381-99397 to exclude the reference to ordering of "appropriate immunization(s)." CPT also spells out preventive medicine associated services that are exclusive of 99381-99397. "Vaccine/toxoid products, immunization administrations, ancillary studies involving laboratory, radiology, [...]