Appeal type: Lab
Decision: Unfavorable

We decided that the Plan does not have to pay for drug testing services (CPT 80307 and HCPCS G0483)
provided to the enrollee on June 3, 2019.
You asked the Plan to pay for the services. You say that this should be paid for. The Plan denied your request.
The Plan says the documentation submitted did not include a valid physician order/lab requisition or medical
records signed by the ordering physician stating exactly what tests are to be performed.
The Plan must follow Medicare rules. Medicare rules say that providers must report services correctly.
Providers must report services with the appropriate CPT code.
In this case, the CPT Code Manual definition of the denied codes is:
CPT 80307:
Drug test(s), presumptive, any number of drug classes, any number of devices or procedures; by instrument
chemistry analyzers (eg, utilizing immunoassay [eg, EIA, ELISA, EMIT, FPIA, IA, KIMS,RIA]),
chromatography (eg, GC, HPLC), and mass spectrometry either with or without chromatography, (eg, DART,
DESI, GC-MS, GC-MS/MS, LC-MS, LC-MS/MS, LDTD, MALDI, TOF) includes sample validation when
performed, per date of service.
HCPCS G0483:
Drug test(s), definitive, utilizing (1) drug identification methods able to identify individual drugs and
distinguish between structural isomers (but not necessarily stereoisomers), including, but not limited to,
GC/MS (any type, single or tandem) and LC/MS (any type, single or tandem and excluding immunoassays
(e.g., IA, EIA, ELISA, EMIT, FPIA) and enzymatic methods (e.g., alcohol dehydrogenase)), (2) stable isotope
or other universally recognized internal standards in all samples (e.g., to control for matrix effects,
interferences and variations in signal strength), and (3) method or drug-specific calibration and matrix-matched
quality control material (e.g., to control for instrument variations and mass spectral drift); qualitative or
quantitative, all sources, includes specimen validity testing, per day; 22 or more drug class(es), including
metabolite(s) if performed
We asked our physician reviewer to carefully review the case file and apply the relevant Medicare rules to
determine if the Plan was correct in denying the request to pay for the services. Our reviewer says that the
services at issue in this case were not supported by the medical records. Our physician reviewer found no
provider records correlating to the date of service have been submitted for review. Therefore, there is no
documentation of a provider's concern for drug abuse/misuse to justify the ordering of the tests. There is no
evidence that the UDS results were reviewed prior to ordering the UDT. There is no evidence that the UDT
was not tailored to the enrollee's addictions and/or medications. Therefore, the documentation does not support
that the UDS or UDT were medically necessary or reasonable.
We looked at this physician's review, the file, and Medicare rules. Based on this information, we decided that
Medicare rules for coverage of the services have not been met. Therefore, we decided that the Plan does not
have to pay for drug testing services (CPT 80307 and HCPCS G0483) provided to the enrollee on June 3, 2019.