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Coding Quiz: Quiz- Know Doctor's Approach for Angiography Coding

Hone your PV skills with these tough questions and expert answers

Whether you can pinpoint the exact catheter location can make or break your abdominal angiography reporting. Take this quiz to see if you've mastered PV procedure coding or if you need to brush up on your PV coding basics.
1. True or false: When a physician performs an abdominal angiography, she can perform a "flush aortography" or an "abdominal runoff" from the same catheter position.
Answer: True. When you see "flush aortography" in the physician's documentation, you should report code 75625 (Aortography, abdominal, by serialography, radiological supervision and interpretation). For "abdominal with runoff," you should report 75630 (Aortography, abdominal plus bilateral iliofemoral lower extremity, catheter, by serialography, radiological supervision and interpretation).

Tip: You don't need to know the size of the catheter or how much dye the physician used - but you do need to know where the physician placed the catheter, says Deb Ovall, CMA, CCS, CIC, lead coder and data quality analyst for Medical College Hospitals of Ohio at Toledo.
2. What is the correct code for runoff imaging?
Answer: If the physician performs the runoff imaging from a high catheter placement in the aorta, and then images both the aorta and the extremity, you can report 75630, says Terry Fletcher, BS, CPC, CCS-P, CCS, CMSCS, CMC, a coding and reimbursement specialist in Laguna Beach, Calif. But if the catheter is in the distal aorta and the physician performs a runoff, your code will depend on whether she looks at one leg (75710) or two (75716), Fletcher says.
If the physician keeps the catheter in one place, you should report extremity angiographies with these codes:

75710 - Angiography, extremity, unilateral, radiological supervision and interpretation

75716 - Angiography, extremity, bilateral, radiological supervision and interpretation

  +75774 - Angiography, selective, each additional vessel studied after basic
examination, radiological supervision and interpretation (list separately in addition to code for primary procedure).
Hint: Keep in mind that you can't separately report subsequent studies from the same catheter position, such as a complete runoff study.
3. Code this scenario: The physician performs an imaging of the aorta in one catheter location, and bilateral vessels runoff from one position in the aorta. She moves the catheter to another position to perform the runoff imaging.
Answer: You would report 75625 for the abdominal aortography. For the extremity angiography, you'd report 75716. The key is location: If the physician performs the imaging from two different sites, you can usually report the extremity code (75716) separately. But if she sticks to one location for the aorta and runoff vessels, report 75630 only.
Tip: Be sure the physician's documentation supports billing for both the abdominal aortography [...]

- Published on 2005-04-13