COVID may have usurped the national spotlight for two straight years, but let’s not forget the large number of influenza cases we have every year. Although the CDC recommends flu vaccine administrations in September or October, this week is National Flu Vaccination Week, so let’s review 2021/2022 vax administration codes.
In order to pick the correct code, you need to keep these three factors in mind:
- Specific vaccine provided, including the brand name. Although all flu vaccines protect against the same flu viruses, they are all manufactured differently and licensed for specific age ranges.
- Whether the vax was trivalent or quadrivalent. Trivalent vaccines protect against three strains of the flu, while quadrivalent protect against four. They made things easy for us: 100% of the flu vax for the 2021/2022 season are quadrivalent.
- Whether the vaccine is free of preservatives. Consider that approximately 85% of this year’s vaccine supply is thimerosal-free or thimerosal-reduced (i.e., preservative-free).
You would use three codes when administering the flu vaccine:
- A CPT code for the specific vaccine you give the patient. This table from the CDC contains the CPT codes for the various vaccines for the 2021/2022 flu season.
- CPT code G0008 for the administration of any flu vaccine.
- ICD-10-CM code Z23, Encounter for immunization