Pathologist-Verified Billing: Correction Rates of Miscoded Frozen Section Cases

With the adoption of Epic/Beaker at our institution, surgical pathology specimens are assigned a Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) charge code at the time of accessioning, and pathologists have been made responsible for verifying the accuracy of the code before signing out the case.

To determine with what frequency attending pathologists reassigned the correct charge code to a specimen when the code assigned at accessioning was incorrect, as well as to estimate the potential financial impact of missed changes.

We reviewed all specimens received for frozen section during a 7-month period, identified specimens where the default charge code that our departmental protocol assigns at frozen section (88305) was incorrect, and assessed the rate of successful code change by pathologists and the potential financial cost of each missed change.

Three hundred fifty-two of 2191 frozen section specimens (16%) required a change in the 88305 charge code. The codes for 195 specimens (55%) were correctly changed by the attending pathologist, while 157 (45%) were not changed (149) or were changed to an incorrect charge code (8). Individual pathologist change rates ranged from 0% to 100%, with a mean and median change rate of 43% and 24%, respectively. Using average code reimbursements at our institution, the loss in revenue from the 157 missed and incorrect frozen section changes was estimated at $13 788 ($1970 per month).

Pathologists showed highly variable rates of correcting CPT charge codes when the incorrect code had been previously assigned to a case, with associated loss of revenue from missed and incorrect code changes.