Respiratory Question for the Week of February 12, 2018

Question:

When we perform venipuncture, what code do we report?

Answer:

For venipuncture—one of the three specimen types typically collected by respiratory therapy, you would report the following CPT^® code to all payers including Medicare.

Medicare will reimburse for the venipuncture procedure once per encounter. Be sure to differentiate between venipuncture, capillary collection and draws from a line or access device. When collecting capillary specimens (36416), the related cost is considered by Medicare to be insignificant and should be bundled to the test procedure.

CPT^® is a registered trademark of the American Medical Association.

This question was answered in the 2018 edition of our Coding Essentials for RT/Pulmonary Function. For more hot topics relating to respiratory therapy services, please view our store, or call us at 1.800.252.1578 ext. 2.