Ask Dr. Z

We have a third party company looking for additional reimbursement on outpatient facility cardiac caths. They are telling us that we can bill for an attempted stent in an artery with a -74 modifier when it was not completed; however, they went on to successfully complete an angioplasty in the same artery. So the billing would be coronary angioplasty (no modifier) and coronary stent with -74 modifier. My concern is that the angioplasty is bundled in the stent code. In the past we billed for the successful procedure only. They are using guidance HCPCS, 3rd Quarter 2011, page 7, to justify this type of billing.