Wiki Chemotherapy Infusions

[MMillercpc]

New to all of this... I have a patient getting IV benedryl , phenergan and decadron prior to chemotherapy. Each only takes 5 minutes to infuse and it is done throught the same IV site as the chemo. Then patient is infused with one chemo drug for 10 minutes and another chemo drug for 3 hours..

I know the chemo portion would be coded using 96413,96417x3?, for the other codes would I use 96367x3 ? desription of code indicates to use as a second or subsequent service after a different intiioal service is administered through the same IV site. Report 96367 only once PER sequentioal infusion fo SAME infuste mix.... Or am I interpreting this incorrectly? Any suggestions would be appreciated

 

[JMeggett]

It's been awhile since I coded for chemo/infusions...but check out 96374 - intravenous "push". See if you can find info online about IV pushes.

 

[mitchellde]

Ok let me see if I can sort this out. Lets start with the Chemo drugs, for infusions you look at the primary reason for the fluidss as your key to what gets coded as initial. The primary reason was Chemo so start there, you get only one initial service for each vein accessed and I assume that was only one vein. So start with you 3 hour infusion as
96413
96415 x 2
your 10 minute infusion will be a push as
96411
your 3 other drugs do
96376
96376 59
96376 59

When the infusion is for 15 minutes or less we coded it as a push.

Way back in the way back machine the AMA had an excellent article on how to code infusions and chemo and this is what I have always followed.