Chart Talk ~ Anesthesia Coding Conversations

Anesthesia Coding • Auditing • Compliance • Education

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Hi! My name is Dianne C. Moseley, CPC, CPCO, CPMA, CANPC, creator of Chart Talk ~ Anesthesia Coding Conversations. I am a healthcare professional with more than 32 years of experience in revenue cycle management and 15 years focused specifically on anesthesia coding, auditing, compliance, and education. Throughout my career, I have worked across multiple areas of the revenue cycle, giving me a broad understanding of how documentation, coding, compliance, and reimbursement work together. My passion has always been education—taking complicated coding concepts and making them easier to understand and apply in the real world. That passion is what led to the creation of Chart Talk. What began as a place to have conversations about anesthesia coding is growing into a comprehensive educational resource for anesthesia coders, auditors, educators, and compliance professionals. Chart Talk brings together practical coding guidance, anatomy-based education, documentation and compliance resources, auditing insights, quick-reference guides, educational series, and real-world discussions about the challenges we encounter every day in anesthesia coding. My goal is not simply to provide an answer to a coding question, but to encourage coders to understand why an answer is correct—by learning the anatomy, reviewing the documentation, researching authoritative guidance, and developing the confidence to make well-supported coding decisions. Welcome to Chart Talk ~ Anesthesia Coding Conversations — where we learn, question, research, and grow together.

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  • 🚩 Anesthesia Audit Red Flag #5

    When the Record Doesn’t Agree with Itself You are almost finished auditing the case, the anesthesia record looks good. The procedure is documented, the anesthesia time is present, the modifiers appear appropriate, everything seems to be falling into place. Then you open another part of the medical record, and suddenly… the story changes. The anesthesia record…

  • Do You Ever Feel Like Giving Up?

    Do you ever have one of those moments when you wonder if it would just be easier to give up? Maybe you have been working on a project that isn’t coming together the way you imagined. Maybe you gave a presentation and walked away thinking about everything you wish you had done differently. Maybe you…

  • 🚩 Anesthesia Audit Red Flag #4

    Postoperative Pain Block or Primary Anesthetic? You open the anesthesia record and there it is. A beautifully documented nerve block. The nerve is identified, laterality is documented, ultrasound guidance is documented, the local anesthetic, concentration, and volume are recorded, the procedure note looks great, so, what’s the CPT code? Not so fast.  Before asking “What code describes…

  • 🚩 Anesthesia Audit Red Flag #3

    The Procedure Is Listed — But Where Is the Documentation? You are reviewing an anesthesia claim. In addition to the anesthesia service, you see another CPT code. Maybe it’s an arterial line, or a central venous catheter, a separately reported TEE service, or maybe it’s ultrasound guidance associated with another procedure. At first glance, the…

  • When Your Gut Tells You Something Is Wrong:What Do You Do?

    There are moments in medical coding when the hardest question is not: “What code should I use”, but “What do I do when I am being told to do something that I believe is wrong?” Medical coding has guidelines for a reason. We have official coding guidelines, payer policies, CMS regulations, NCCI edits, CPT guidance, documentation…

  • 🚩 Anesthesia Audit Red Flag #2

    The Modifier Says Medical Direction — Does the Record? You open the anesthesia claim and see QK on the anesthesiologist’s service and QX on the CRNA’s service. Medical direction. Easy enough, right? Not necessarily. The modifiers tell us how the service was billed. They don’t, by themselves, prove that the documentation supports billing it that way. That distinction is one…

  • Would You Be Interested in Anesthesia CEU Webinars?

    I have a question for my fellow anesthesia coders, auditors, educators, and everyone who follows Chart Talk ~ Anesthesia Coding Conversations. I am currently exploring the possibility of becoming an AAPC Approved Vendor so that Chart Talk could offer educational webinars that qualify for AAPC Continuing Education Units (CEUs). This is something I am very interested in pursuing. However,…

  • 🚩 Anesthesia Audit Red Flag #1

    The Anesthesia Time Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story Anesthesia time seems simple. There is a start time. There is a stop time. Calculate the difference, convert the minutes according to the applicable payer methodology, and move on to the next record. But anyone who has spent time auditing anesthesia records knows it isn’t always that…

  • 🚩 Anesthesia Audit Red Flags

    What Makes You Stop and Look Again? You are reviewing an anesthesia record, the CPT code looks right, modifier looks right, anesthesia time is there, and the signatures are there. At first glance, everything seems fine, but then you notice something. A time doesn’t quite line up, a modifier is reported, but you’re not sure…

  • What Are You Taking Into Next Week?

    Another week of anesthesia coding is behind us.  Maybe it was a great week. Maybe it was one of those weeks when every record seemed to bring another question. You may have encountered a procedure you had never coded before. You may have struggled with the anatomy of a nerve block. Maybe the documentation did not…