Wiki Anal Pap Smear

[tbooth10]

I work for a clinic and majority of our patients are HIV positive. We complete Anal Pap Smears on majority of our patients, but we aren't billing for this service as we cannot locate the correct code for what we complete. We obtain the sample and then it is sent to LabCorp to be tested. This makes 88160 unusable code for our scenario. Q0091 is not usable either as it specifics cervical or vaginal. Does anyone have recommendations on what code we could use to make this a billable service? Thanks!

 

[ole16]

Could you consider using an unlisted CPT code? If you're looking to bill specimen collection as a separate service, you might consider:

87999 - Unlisted microbiology procedure
or
89240 - Unlisted miscellaneous pathology service

But unlisted codes typically require manual review and may be denied unless accompanied by strong documentation, especially if sent to commercial payers.

In many settings, specimen collection for anal Pap smears is considered part of the overall visit and not separately billable, especially if you're not doing any lab work or slide prep in-house. Some providers document the collection as part of the note but do not assign a separate code.

You might also check with LabCorp to see if they recommend or support a specific CPT for collection - some labs provider guidance for how clinics should bill when sending specimens to them.