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POLICY

A clinical pathology consultation is a service rendered by the pathologist in response to a request from the attending physician in relation to a test result(s) requiring additional medical interpretive judgment. The pathologist's medical interpretive judgment must be documented in a written report.

The consultation begins when the pathologist receives the request from the attending physician and ends when the pathologist has fulfilled all requirements outlined in the request. The pathologist may review the results of several tests at different intervals during the course of the time specified in the request. For example, the attending physician may request the review of test results for a given period of time, such as, every four hours for a 24-hour period. This would be considered one consultation. CPT code 80500 or 80502 should be reported one time for each completed consultation.

POLICY EXCEPTIONS

None

POLICY GUIDELINES

POLICY HISTORY

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