Forum - Questions & Answers
How is "Activated Charcoal" Coded, it's a procedure for suicide or vomiting of overdose?
I need a ICD-9 and CPT code for "Activated Charcoal or Administered Charcoal" these procedure are nowhere to be found in my coding book or areas. It's for a suicide of an overdose on Prozac, so the ER Dept Physician gave Pt "Charcoal " to vomit these items to get rid of the overdose of pills in pt's system. I appreciate this. I don't have a 3m encoder and using my books. Thank you all so greatly.
I found answer on my own.. 39.97 and 90997- Hemoperfusion.. can be used for drug overdose
Thank... Not sure how alive is this forum.. but found the answer to my own question.. hope it helps you also. I found the hemoperfusion codes are 39.97, 99.29, and 90997 CPT..can be used for pt's the come to the outpatient/ER with a overdose on pills etc. and this is the procedure used. Thanks!! and Good Luck. This was very hard to find.
Charcoal
Did you look at code 91105? But this is for lavage.
If tablets are given, it is part of physician E/M level.
hemoperfusion
Hemoperfusion is a technique similar to acute hemodialysis. However, instead of using a dialysate as in hemodialysis, the patient's blood is filtered through a charcoal or resin. As with hemodialysis, an arteriovenous shunt must be created.
Hemoperfusion is used primarily to treat overdoses of drugs for which hemodialysis is not effective (such as barbiturates and sedatives). It is a generally accepted clinically recognized procedure when performed for this reason. Claims for hemoperfusion for drug intoxication should be processed under procedure code 90997.
Is this what was documented? was an AV shunt created?
nancy beat me to it
Activated charcoal is given orally, hemoperfusion involves filtering the blood, as the name implies. There is no CPT for activated charcoal administration just as there is no CPT for administering a tylenol tablet.