Question:
What are the codes for extended EEG monitoring and how do they differ from normal EEG monitoring?
Answer:
Codes 95812 and 95813 are used to report extended EEG monitoring, which means times longer than 40 minutes up to 119 minutes. The purpose of a prolonged EEG may be different from the purpose of a routine EEG. For example, extended monitoring is often carried out in a critical care setting to judge the effects of medication. Each hour of prolonged testing generates several hundred pages of recordings to be interpreted by the physician. Codes 95812 and 95813 represent the interpretation and writing of a report, based on the physician’s review of the recordings. During these prolonged recordings, the patient is not generally tested specifically for identification, lateralization, or localization of an epileptic focus, as they would be when a routine EEG is performed.