Welcome, Lab Coders!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to Lab Coder, a blog that will feature tips, comments, questions, and research-in-progress about HCPCS, CPT, ICD-10, etc. for common lab-related diagnoses and procedures.

How will this blog help you code lab claims faster and easier? Who's writing this blog, anyway? 

Read on for info about the 3 main benefits this blog offers, as well as some background info about how I got into lab coding.

Background

  Recently I was assigned to a specialized lab coding team. I was a bit of a rookie coder at the time, and the team itself had also been newly formed. Amid my excitement at taking on a specialty, I realized there was quite a lot of industry standard to be researched and procedure to be established. So my partner and I knew we had plenty of Google searching, guideline scouring, and forum browsing ahead of us (which was fine by me, because I actually enjoy research -- the trickier, the better!).

  From the beginning, though, we noticed a problem. Whenever we needed to learn more about a particular code, more often than not our searches turned up a surprising lack of resources. Sometimes we would hit a wall with Google. Sometimes the AHA Coding Clinics would give only the most obvious information about a particular test. Almost always, forums (such as the AAPC's coding forum) would provide no helpful, source-cited insight into lab coding.

  A few realizations began to dawn on us. For one thing, there were no readily available coding books that provided much beyond the most obvious facts about lab tests. The helpful information that we did find online was not stored in a central location. Plus, lab coding requires a different mindset than many other types of medical coding. All of these elements combined lead to our final realization, which was that there is an overall lack of online resources available for specialized lab coding.

3 Benefits of This Blog

  But if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem, right? So on this blog, you'll find:

1. Links to lab coding resources.

  Firstly, I'd like to help fellow lab coders find in-depth, citable resources and guidelines specifically for lab coding. There's nothing better than a quotable, authoritative, and clearly-explained source when you need a verdict for an appeal, a response for a provider, or a direction for a new process manual. This blog will attempt to gather the most useful lab coding resources into one list. (Stay tuned for updates -- I'll be working on ways to make this list even more user-friendly!)

2. Notated examples of specific lab coding scenarios.

  Secondly, this blog will review specific lab coding scenarios and give you an assessment of them based on research, discussions with lab personnel, and denials/appeals experience.

3. Focused, lab coding-oriented community.

   Finally, the most important function of this blog is to open the discussion amongst lab coders. While there are many excellent web-based communities for general coding, our specialty lacks focused networking. In the comments and forums of this blog, I hope to facilitate an open environment. If experienced lab coders have a place to share their knowledge, and newbie coders (including myself) have a place to safely ask questions, we will all benefit from the ability to find thorough answers faster and easier than before.

  Thanks for reading! 

  I'd love to hear from you! Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns, resources, or anything related to lab coding that you would like to share. 

Happy coding!