Our blood supplier is charging are "Rare Fee" for some units of antigen typed blood. If you are getting such a charge how do you pass it on to the patient?

We set up "Bill only" charges to pass these reference lab charges to the patient.

Mary,

What CPT code do you use for that Bill Only charge? The misc. charge?

We had quit charging for any of those miscellaneous charges a while back when corporate didn't want anything w/o it's own CPT charged. It is my understanding that the billing department would have to send a special form in with any non CPT charges. I can't imagine them filling one of those out every time the Laboratory had additional charges!

Try 86999 (other).

Mary

At our institution we made up new CDM codes, RAREDG (rare deglyced), RPCALI (rare leukoreduced irradiated), RAPCA (rare non-leukoreduced) etc. .....6 in all to take care of the different types of products we receive. CPT codes used were P9039, P9016, P9021. Blood has to meet certain criteria to be considered rare by our supplier. Example: antigen negative for 2 RH's, Kell, one Fya, one Jka, one Ss.....or, negative for Kell, 2 RH's and both Fya and Fyb.

I was instructed by my Medicare finance person to also create new product codes and add the additional charges to those codes just like for special courier charges or off hour charges. She does not let me "add" individual charges - they must be incorporated into the charge of the unit.

How do you "create" new product codes? The P codes are created by Medicare and are very specificly defined. We also can not have different charges for the same CPT code so as of yet we have not found a way to charge for all of the additional fee charges (like after hours and stats)

No I use the same P codes but I created new product codes in my own system - for example I have a product code for leukoreduced red blood cells and another product code for a special ordered leukoreduced red blood cell that has a courier charge included in the charge. So the P code is the same for both units but the courier charge can be passed on to the patient. Okay?