tci Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement - 2023 Issue Q3

Reader Questions: Get a Grip on Fingerstick Reimbursement

Question: Our lab collects capillary blood by fingerstick for certain tests rather than venipuncture. Can we expect payment for this service? AAPC Forum Participant Answer: You probably can’t expect reimbursement for fingerstick blood collection, even though CPT® provides a code for the service — 36416 (Collection of capillary blood specimen (eg, finger, heel, ear stick)). Most payers, including Medicare, assume the exam or test procedure includes the cost of most simple specimen collection procedures, such as fingerstick, urine cup collection, or culture swab. Many payers do cover the cost of a routine venipuncture blood draw — 36415 (Collection...

To read the full article, sign in and subscribe to tci Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement.


Keep pace with evolving Medicare regulations — and onboard your team — with timely analysis of critical updates interpreted in an easy-to-follow, easy-to-apply format. Your subscription to TCI's Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement Alert will equip you to navigate code and guideline changes, CCI edits, and revisions to modifiers, payer policies, the fee schedule, OIG target areas, and more.

  • Current newsletters added each month
  • Fully searchable archives - over 4200 articles
  • ALL years/issues back to 2003 organized by year and issue
  • Codes mentioned in articles are linked to Code Information pages
  • Code Information pages link back to related articles

This feature is currently unavailable for online purchase. For more information, please call 801-770-4203 or Contact Us.

demo
request yours today
 subscribe
start today
 newsletter
free subscription

Thank you for choosing Find-A-Code, please Sign In to remove ads.