The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a billing code for the Lymphoseek radiopharmaceutical from Navidea Biopharmaceuticals.
CMS issued a pass-through C-code under the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS), which Navidea believes will streamline billing and reimbursement for healthcare providers using the product, a technetium-99m agent for lymphatic mapping. Navidea believes the billing code will become effective on October 1.
Lymphoseek was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March to assist in the localization of lymph nodes draining a primary tumor in patients with breast cancer or melanoma.