Well said Bob! Mike
-----Original Message----- From: histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu [mailto:histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Richmond Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 12:46 PM To: histonet@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 _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
