Thursday, July 16, 2009

Physician coding for Dental Surg Clearance

Hi -- I rec'd this Q the other day and thought I'd post for you...

Coding a “medical clearance for dental surgery”

Q: How would you code an h&p (history and physical) when the patient is going to go under for dental work? The doctor only did the h&p and I thought it would be coded to 99212, 99213. What do you say? Thanks a bunch . . .

A: If the physician is doing the medical clearance for dental surgery, he can do the 99212,99213 (or appropriate level of E&M) OR he can bill a consultation or New patient code. The driver for this scenario, is that the physician will need to report any "diagnosis" that might affect how surgery goes, AND include the dx of V72.83 which encompasses the pre-procedure general physical exam.

(FYI, these may or may not be payable from the insurance carrier, so you might want to have an ABN on file for this, and collect up front!. Thx... L

No comments:

Post a Comment