Pulmonology Coding Alert

Sleep studies are tests that watch what happens to a patient's body during sleep, and try to find out what causes sleep problems. Sleep studies usually are done in a sleep lab. Sleep labs are often located in hospitals. But sleep studies also can be done with portable equipment you use at home.The most common type of sleep study is polysomnography. A basic electroencephalography (EEG) can be done in an awake or asleep state, and monitors brainwaves, says Gabriela Gregory, MD, in Las Vegas. "It can be used to monitor the different characteristic patterns in an awake or asleep state as well as any activity caused by stimulation such as a strobe light or hyperventilation. The EEG is used in conjunction with a sleep study or polysomnography to define the different sleep stages, as well as to monitor brain activity in those stages," she adds.Codes 95808 (Polysomnography; sleep staging with [...]