Patient care or lab service?

[Iris Wang]

I would like to know your opinion about this Fairview lab expense.  Our department has a grant for cervical cancer screening of Somali immigrant women through a self-sampling intervention.  The patients will do a self-sampling of HPV testing and send the test kits to Fairview lab for processing.  Do you consider this to be patient care or lab service?  Please see attached letter and Fairview invoice.  

[Patty Hoag]

I would say that the correct coding would be lab services, especially since this is self-sampling and not collected by a hospital or clinic.  The fees are only for the lab service of testing the samples.  

730251 Patient Care: Fees for laboratory or medical services, including patient care, provided by physicians, counselors, psychologists, dentists, and other health professionals, including hospitals and clinics.

720403 Lab Services: Scientific services for research laboratory, classroom, medical, and dental use, such as microscopy, synthesis, production of supplies for dental use, blood drawing, lab send-outs, etc.