Respiratory Question for the Week of April 17, 2017

Question:

Last week you mentioned that 94010 and 95070 were part of the mutually exclusive procedure policy. Can you provide a little more information about this policy?

Answer:

Many procedure codes cannot be reported together because they are mutually exclusive of each other. Mutually exclusive procedures cannot reasonably be performed at the same anatomic site or same patient encounter. An example of a mutually exclusive situation is the repair of an organ that can be performed by two different methods. Only one method can be chosen to repair the organ. A second example is a service that can be reported as an “initial” service or a “subsequent” service. With the exception of drug administration services, the initial service and subsequent service cannot be reported at the same patient encounter.