[Histonet] Re: CPT coding during accession

[Mike Pence]

Well said Bob!

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mailto:histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Robert
Richmond
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 12:46 PM
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] Re: CPT coding during accession


Tere Hodges at St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson, Arizona asks:

>>When you put in charges as a preliminary charge ... do you over bill 
>>or under bill? I have always stayed under while putting in charges and
then audit the doctor's charges the next day. Example:
colon segment other then tumor... bill   88307
the next day tumor was found now it is bumped up to 88309<<

In my experience in a number of institutions, doing the CPT coding when
you accession the specimen is a bad idea - most of the coding errors
never get caught. CPT coding should be done at sign-out or afterward.
Remember that a number of common skin lesions are 88304 rather than
88305 depending on the microscopic diagnosis, and that coding a
hysterectomy specimen is a dark art that I don't like to make anybody
else take responsibility for (except maybe Harry Potter, who after all
can cast a patronus charm).

I think the responsible pathologist should do the coding (this is a
common practice, but not common enough), and that somebody else (like
you) should check the pathologist's coding to make sure that nothing has
been omitted (decalcification, the routine special stain that was
useless in a particular case).

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN

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