Get acquainted with new thoracoscopy CPT 2012 codes.
It's a long-standing debate--once an established patient
visits your practice in order to see a new physician, then should you report a
novel patient office visit code? CPT® 2012 tries to make clear when that's
possible with a revision to the "New and Established Patient" segment
of the CPT® manual. Read this article for accurate medical coding and know what
the new CPT 2012 codes are.
The rules: At present, Supercoder CPT® points out that a "new
patient" refers to a patient who has not received any professional
services, for instance an E/M or another face-to-face service from the
physician or physician group practice -- in the similar physician specialty --
in the past three years.
Clarification: CPT® 2012 takes that definition a step ahead,
now maintain that a new patient is one who has not obtained any professional
services provided by physician or any other physician of the exact similar
specialty and subspecialty who is from the same group practice, in the past
three years. The parts of the description that are new for 2012 are underlined.
What this means to you: In case your practice employs a variety
of subspecialists, CPT® now clarifies that claims for patients who see
dissimilar doctors with diverse subspecialties can be billed using a new
patient code (such as 99201-99205)
Example: A cardiology practice makes use of a general
cardiologist and an electrophysiologist (EP), and then both physicians are
categorized as these different specialties with their payers. The cardiologist
refers a patient to the EP for consideration of an implantable
cardiodefibrillator. In this condition, the visit with the EP must qualify as a
new patient visit, supposing the payer accepts these CPT® rules.
CMS Offers Surprise 0-Day Global to New Thoracoscopy CPT2012 Codes
Not only did CPT® 2012 modifies the heading of its
"Thoracoscopy" part to cover the term "VATS"
(video-assisted thoracic surgery), it also introduced three new diagnostic
thoracoscopy CPT 2012 codes (32607, 32608, 32609)
It's an interesting fact that these new CPT 2012 codes were allocated
fewer global days than even the CPT® Advisory Committee recommended.
You must keep in mind that Diagnostic thoracoscopies
(32607-32609 ) actually have zero-day globals. In fact it's there in a
recommendation to modify those to ten-day globals which would reveal the time
the patient spends in the hospital which could be up to ten days, but that has
not up till now changed. Consequently, physicians can independently report E/M
services that they offer to patients all through the related hospital stay,
apart from the real day of the procedure itself.
