Reporting Nonselective Angiography to Medicare Means Assigning HCPCS Codes Rather Than CPT®  

Category: Coding

When the physician performs nonselective renal or iliofemoral angiograms for Medicare beneficiaries during cardiac catheterization, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires HCPCS codes instead of CPT® codes. So make sure you are familiar with G0275-G0278 when reporting these procedures to your Medicare contractor.

Look at the Rules

CMS maintains that physicians often perform peripheral artery angiography during cardiac catheterization with the catheter in the aorta or in the ipsilateral extremity without selectively catheterizing the imaged artery. In this case, you should not report a catheter placement code for the peripheral procedure because catheterization of the aorta and the ipsilateral extremity are integral parts of the heart catheterization procedure.

For example, if the physician performs cardiac catheterization and th...