I was wondering if it would be compliant to do the following? We felt that taken less actual shots would provide the patients with less radiation when the extra shot is not necessary. Unfortunately now there is question as to whether or not we should be billing the way that we are.

A patient presents and a two view foot and a two view heel (calcaneus) are ordered.

The xray tech takes two shots of the foot AP and Lateral and one shot of the Heel axial as the lateral heel is already visible on the shot of the lateral foot so another shot is not required to see the lateral heel…….therefore saving the patient further radiation (though I know that it is slight).

We still have all 4 views that were ordered and felt comfortable billing with the 2 view terminology for each code (73620 and 73650) as all views are present.

Now we are being told that we should be billing for how many shots are taken, not how many views we have.

Does anyone have any documentation to support either side of this argument? I have not been able to find any.

Thank you,
Kelly