Non-opioid Dental Post-operative Pain Management

by  Christine Taxin, President - Links2Success
Apr 6th, 2022 - Reviewed/Updated Mar 14th

Understanding the changes in code D9613 is especially important!

A patient is referred to an oral surgery for surgical intervention for surgical extractions of two impacted wisdom teeth. He explained that he read a story regarding the prescriptions for pain, and explained he was afraid of addiction. His family went thru that with his brother. Doctor explained, he used a different post-operative pain management protocol that had no addition drugs included.

To address this concern, following the manufacturer’s instructions, the surgeon plans to infiltrate bupivacaine liposome injectable suspension at the surgical sites at the end of the procedure.

How would you code for the bupivacaine liposome injectable suspension in 2022? Make sure you are not relying on last year since the billing has changed (undelined is new).

D9613 infiltration of sustained release therapeutic drug, single or multiple sites per quadrant

Infiltration of a sustained release pharmacologic agent for long-acting surgical site pain control. Not for local anesthesia purposes.

This procedure is reported four times and the four quadrants treated are identified by entering the applicable area of the oral cavity on the claim. Also, D9613’s nomenclature was revised with CDT 2022 to explicitly note that the service is delivered and reported “per site.”