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ZHealth Coding Newsletter - October 2014

October 2014 Q & A

Question: Venous Stent Placement During Thrombolytic Therapy

In the 2014 Interventional Radiology Coding Reference, page 196 example #2, there is a thrombolytic therapy procedure that ends with a venous stent placement. The venous stenting codes do not include the catheter placement, and according to the CPT manual, you should report those in addition to the stents (37238-37229). The example only has the 37238 and does not list a catheter placement CPT code. The thrombolytic catheter is removed and a new catheter for the stent placement is inserted. Other coding references have stated that if a new catheter is placed even from the same access, you would report the catheter placement for the intervention. Wouldn’t you report the venous catheter placement in this example? And if so, what code would you use?