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Pulmonology Coding Alert

Reader Question:

Office Visit Oxygen Therapy Is Part of E/M

Published on Mon Jul 11, 2011

Question: Can we bill for oxygen therapy given to patients in the office during an E/M service?Mississippi SubscriberAnswer: As oxygen therapy during office visits by patients is part of the E/M service, you cannot bill the therapy separately. There is also no CPT® code specified for oxygen therapy administered in the office. In these instances, you should only bill the appropriate E/M code (99201-99215).Also, you should include prolonged services codes (99354-99355) to bill for the extra time where this is applicable. These prolonged services codes, however, can be billed only when there is direct (face-to-face) patient contact by the billing provider lasting at least 30 minutes beyond the time associated with the primary E/M code. For example, assume the E/M service is a midlevel service for an established patient that lasts 50 minutes, including the oxygen therapy; you would code this as 99213 plus +99354 (requiring a total visit time [...]
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