Wiki When will Medicare stop accepting modifer 59?

[empalagiglass]

Does anyone have any idea when Medicare will stop accepting modifier 59?

 

[thomas7331]

To the best of my knowledge, Medicare has not said that it has any plans to stop accepting modifier 59. The MLN publication SE1418, 'Proper Use of Modifier 59', was just revised this year, and no mention was made that the modifier would be eliminated. They do state that this modifier "should only be utilized if no other more specific modifier is appropriate". There were plans discussed to revise the NCCI edits at some point in the future to restrict certain code pairs to particular modifiers, but not to eliminate the 59 modifier completely, as I understand it.