Anesthesia Coding: Measure 193 For Pqri Credit

By Author: Julia Rose
Total Articles: 89
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When your anesthesiologist uses active warming to prevent hypothermia in a patient after surgery, you should already be familiar with codes like 4250F. If your practice is participating in PQRI, knowing how to report the perioperative temperature warming management codes could bring you a bonus.


If your anesthesiologist participates in PQRI from this July and reports on measure 193, he'll also need to report on measure 76 if he sees more than eight Medicare patients during the six-month period who have a condition that apply to measure 76.


Learn proper measure 193 use


Unplanned perioperative hypothermia takes place when a patient's core body temperature goes below 36 degrees Celsius. Medicare developed measure 193 to encourage prevention of this condition. The temperature monitoring measure pertains to all patients undergoing anesthesia, apart from monitored anesthesia care (MAC), nerve blocks and cardiac bypass for 1 hour or longer. This would be an easy measure with which to weigh your 80 percent compliance goal.


Do not anticipate immediate reimbursement ...
... for the PQRI criteria met by your practice. Measure 193 is not reimbursed in the traditional sense of the word. Like all PQRI measures, if you qualify, a bonus will be sent toward the end of the reporting time, which is normally the fall of the following year.


Also, determine length of surgery first. To successfully meet 193, you may need to report more than one PQRI measure code, depending on the length of the surgery.


Next you need to verify performance measures. Find out if services meet the performance measure criteria and report one of the corresponding PQRI codes.


If you want to know more about the proper use of 193 and in case you missed the anesthesia 2010 coding update and reimbursement conference, there are audio recordings of the conference in CDs and MP3s that'll surely prove beneficial to your practice.


Keep on updating your knowledge about anesthesia coding updates by attending 2010 coding update and reimbursement conference with premier coding experts, CDs, tapes and transcripts of coding training information by specialty.