Coding for pulmonary services

This is an overview of billing for services provided by Pulmonologists.  Medicare recognizes Pulmonary Disease as a specialty.  The resources section of this article contains the E/M Frequency data from CMS for the latest year available, and the fifty most commonly billed CPT® codes.

What are the most common procedures: 

• E/M services, including hospital visits and consults
• Bronchoscopies
• Critical care
• Pulmonary function tests
• Sleep studies
• Medications (IM drugs) given during an office visit

Important coding issues:

• Modifier use, including use of modifier 25
• Payment rules for multiple procedures
• Rules for critical care services
• Professional and technical components of PFT's

A great resource is "Coding for Chest Medicine 2009" published by http://www.chestnet.org/practice/pm/index.php