Archive for the ‘Respiratory’ Category
National Respiratory Care Week
This past week was national Respiratory Care Week. It is a time to be more aware of the various ailments [...] Read More »
Home Sleep Studies Gets a New CPT Code
In 2011, CMS issued a final rule that assigned home sleep studies to CPT codes 95800 (sleep study, unattended simultaneous recording, heart rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory analysis, and sleep time) and 95801, which monitors the same parameters except sleep time. For providers, these codes translated to APC 0213 (Level I Sleep Studies, $167). Overnight hospital laboratory-based studies fall under APC 0209, which is reimbursed at a considerably higher rate of $782. Read More »
A Lab Test that is Pure Gold
Researchers have developed the Verigene System, which uses DNA probes that coat the molecules of interest with gold nanoparticles, allowing for the rapid detection of a single respiratory virus at the genetic level. Tissue cultures had been the standard for respiratory virus detection in the past. Since then, PCR assays offered higher sensitivity and specificity for the detection of respiratory virus. The disadvantage is it is still a slow process that takes hours for results. Read More »