Medicare denying claims for urinalysis tests
Medicare denying claims for urinalysis tests
If you have not noticed already, an error in CPT coding edits has resulted in the inappropriate identification and bundling of four urinalysis tests as a component of an evaluation and management (E/M) service.
In response, the HCFA has instructed Medicare carriers to remove the improper edits.
Until the mistake is corrected, payments for the affected tests are being automatically denied by Medicare carriers each time the tests are billed on the same day as any E/M CPT code in the 99201-99360 range. The tests are:
- 81002 urinalysis by dipstick
- 81025 urine pregnancy test
- 82044 urine microalbumin, semiquantitative
- 84525 urea nitrogen, semiquantitative
HCFA advises providers to hold claims for these codes until the problem is corrected. Claims that have been denied should be resubmitted after the corrections are made.
In the meantime, check with your carrier to see how it is handling the problem.
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