Medical Billing Forum

Coding => Coding => : spinalhealth February 15, 2012, 12:39:59 PM

: urine drug screen/clia waived modifier
: spinalhealth February 15, 2012, 12:39:59 PM
i am trying to determine if i'm billing the correct urine drug screen codes.  we are a clia waived facility and we're doing the "multiple" drug screen on every patient before their pain injections.  i am getting conflicting information on which code to bill and whether or not to use the QW modifier.

this is what we've been using - 80101QW with units for commercial patients (DO WE NEED TO USE 80104QW).....for medicare patients we use G0431 and i'm not sure about the modfier on that one (DO WE NEED TO USE G0434???)  then we put our clia # in box 23 on the claim form.

PLEASE HELP :)  I WANT TO MAKE SURE I'M USING THE CORRECT CODES ON MY FEE TICKETS

THANKS !! JEN
: Re: urine drug screen/clia waived modifier
: Michele February 16, 2012, 11:52:11 AM
The problem is that Medicare keeps changing the way that they want it billed.  We bill for a provider who does the same drug screens as you described.  Currently we bill Medicare using G0434 with the QW modifier.  We can only indicate 1 unit even though multiple drugs are being tested for.  We charge the total amount for the 1 unit.  For commercial we still use 80101 and indicate the units per the number of drugs tested for.