Coding for Turning Neurostimulators Off/On for MRI Scans
At our pediatric facility, we have patients with various types of neurostimulators that must be "turned off" or set in an MRI safety mode on a fairly frequent basis for MRI scans. The clinical workflow is that the patient is seen in the hospital based clinic by an APP and the neurostimulator must be interrogated/analyzed and the programming set to "0" so that the patient can have the MRI. Once the MRI is complete, the patient then returns to the clinic and the APP must reanalyze the device and resets the programming back to the original settings to ensure the device is in proper working order and is turned back on.
Guidance is being sought as to whether CPT 95970 or 95971 should be used for this scenario and if the applicable CPT should be reported separately for each APP interaction or if a charge should only be reported as a unit of 1.