CPC Anesthesia Practice Questions
Anesthesia makes up 2 of every 50 questions on a Tigertest CPC practice test. Here are 8 of the 8 questions on it, each with the answer and the reason.
Updated by the Tigertest team. Based on AAPC's published CPC exam areas, the ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines, CMS rules and CPT conventions. Original questions; no code-book lookups.
1. The anesthesia payment formula adds base units, time units and:
- A.Supply units
- B.Modifying units
- C.RVU units
- D.Surgical units
Answer: B. Base units plus time units plus modifying units (physical status, qualifying circumstances) times the conversion factor. Medicare does not pay modifying units.
2. Anesthesia time begins when the anesthesia provider:
- A.Sees the first incision
- B.Admits the patient
- C.Meets the patient pre-op
- D.Starts preparing for induction
Answer: D. Time starts when the provider begins preparing the patient for anesthesia in the OR or equivalent area and ends when the patient is safely under postop care.
3. Physical status modifier P3 describes a patient with:
- A.Severe systemic disease
- B.Brain death, organ donor
- C.Mild systemic disease
- D.A normal, healthy status
Answer: A. P1 is normal and healthy, P2 mild systemic disease, P3 severe systemic disease and P6 a brain-dead organ donor.
4. When several procedures are done under one anesthetic, the coder reports:
- A.The first procedure's code
- B.The longest procedure's anesthesia code
- C.The code with highest base units
- D.Every anesthesia code
Answer: C. Only one anesthesia code is reported, the one with the highest base value, with total time for the session.
5. HCPCS modifier QZ indicates anesthesia by:
- A.The anesthesiologist alone
- B.Monitored anesthesia care
- C.A CRNA without medical direction
- D.A CRNA with medical direction
Answer: C. QZ is a CRNA without medical direction. QX is with medical direction, AA personally performed by the anesthesiologist and QS is MAC.
6. HCPCS modifier AA indicates anesthesia that was:
- A.Performed by the anesthesiologist
- B.Performed by a CRNA alone
- C.Monitored anesthesia care
- D.Medically directed, 2 to 4 concurrent
Answer: A. AA is anesthesia personally performed by the anesthesiologist. Medical direction of 2 to 4 concurrent cases is QK.
7. A qualifying circumstance add-on code may be reported for:
- A.A surgeon's request
- B.A routine elective case
- C.Use of local anesthesia
- D.Extreme age of the patient
Answer: D. Qualifying circumstances include extreme age, total body hypothermia, controlled hypotension and emergency conditions.
8. Using 15-minute time units, how many time units are 1 hour 45 minutes?
- A.105
- B.7
- C.6
- D.8
Answer: B. 105 minutes divided by 15 is 7 units.
Practice all 8 anesthesia questions, and the rest of the 200-question bank, in the free CPC training sets. Questions you miss come back until you have mastered them.
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