I’m an ENT. We do many nasal and ear swab cultures when purulent drainage is noted. As far as I know, there are no codes to bill for these procedures. A LabCorp employee picks up the specimens each day. Can we bill if we deliver these ourselves? The lab is just down the street.

If you actually convey the specimen to the lab, you could bill CPT 99000, but Medicare doesn’t actually have a fee attached to that code. You’d need to see if your commercial payers do this, and then judge whether it would be worth losing a staff person even briefly to convey the specimens. (I’m guessing not.) Keep in mind that you are getting paid for analysis of the results and dependent medical decision making.