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Anyone know the rule for billing for control of bleeding during a procedure. I have heard conflicting info on this issue. Can we bill for it? What are the tips or issues when billing it? Any help will be great!! Thank you.
No, you cannot bill for bleed control when the physician intervention caused the bleed. See this from the article "Colonoscopy Coding Made Simple," from CPT Assistant: "Bleeding that starts as a result of a therapeutic intervention (e.g., snare removal, biopsy, etc) and is controlled by any method is considered part of the initial therapeutic procedure and should not be reported separately with codes 45382 or 45381."
The scenerio is that the patient is not actively bleeding, but has history. The doctor wants to cauterize to prevent future bleeding. How should be bill for this?
In this scenario, you could bill for the bleed control. The bleed control is not a result of a therapeutic intervention and is therefore billable. Another coding option, dependent on the method used to control the bleed is to look at the ablation codes. If a lesion (maybe an arteriovenous lesion) is suspected to have bled in the past and is ablated to prevent further bleeding, this code could be used.