Wiki Shave Lesion and Pathology

[tigerband10]

Hello fellow Coders, I am in need of much help. I have struggled with when to bill for a Pathology report code. Are there certain codes that require a Path report to be billed? I am in a Family Practice/OB-Gyn group and they perform shave lesions and excisions. These are sent for Pathology. Am I to bill a Pathology code (883**) code for all or only certain ones? Any help or list or website that goes into detail would be ever so helpful to me. Thanks all!

 

[JEYCPC]

Is the pathology done in your office? The pathology codes would be billed by the pathologist. You would bill the act of obtaining the specimen.

 

[thomas7331]

The 883xx pathology codes are for the preparation of the specimens into slides and for the pathologist's services in looking at the slides and making a report of the findings. You would only use these codes if you have a laboratory in your office that does this and if your practice employs pathologists or physicians trained in pathology who perform this. If you're sending the specimens out, then you most likely would not bill these unless it's a service you are purchasing.

 

[tigerband10]

Is the pathology done in your office? The pathology codes would be billed by the pathologist. You would bill the act of obtaining the specimen.

The Pathology is not done in our office, but we do sent out the specimens to a lab that we purchase the service from. Generally, we send the specimens to MedFusion and we bill the path reports for paps with MedFusion as the billing provider, with a modifier - i.e. 88142-ZP with location code AK49, which is for MedFusion. So for the excisions, 11*** codes don't need to have a path report billed, such as 88305, etc.? Thank you for your reply.