Questions for Dr. Stern
About Your Urgent Care Center
12. Would you tell me what CPT code would be the appropriate code to use for a follow-up visit for strep? This patient came in initially for sore throat, the strep test was negative. The patient returned 3 days later to get a positive reading on the strep test.
As always, the level of code will be determined by what the physician did and the level to which it was documented. If the physician did not examine the patient but the visit was dominated by counseling, the visit could be coded by the time spent face-to-face or as a 99212 to 99214, depending on whether the patient was stable or worsening or had a new problem. If a complete history was performed and the physician did examine the patient, the examination might determine the code level, which could be at any level.
