Wiki Handheld echo machine

[acartercpc]

My cardio purchased a hand held/ portable echo he used it on some hospital patients at their bedside. If I can determine this was separate from the visit, how would I code this since he owned the machine? I'm finding i can't bill global under location 21, so all I can get is the 93308 with a 26 modifier? Him personally owning the machine is throwing me off. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[thomas7331]

You're correct, you can't bill a global or technical component for a hospitalized patient because the facility is responsible for those costs as part of the care. Your provider really shouldn't be taking his own equipment into the hospital (and it may in fact be against the hospital's policy to do this because they could be liable for this).

The hospital should provide the equipment and your physician can interpret the results and bill for the interpretation, if warranted. In the event that the hospital doesn't have the necessary equipment that your provider needs, your provider might be able to enter into a type of lease arrangement with the hospital whereby he provides the equipment and then bills the hospital directly for their use of it for their patients. Then the hospital will reimburse your provider and they can submit those charges on their facility claim to the patient's insurance.

 

[AmandaBriggs]

I would also caution that the portable echo must be able to store and save the images for retrieval later, similar to a standard echo, to bill for the service.

 

[acartercpc]

thank you so much for your reply. it is truly appreciated. very detailed!