Recently, Noridian released a Local Coverage Article (LCA) on pulmonary thromboembolectomy with an effective date of July 9, 2022. In the LCA, Noridian states that providers have been inappropriately billing the mechanical arterial thrombectomy codes (37184-37186) for this procedure and should be billing the mechanical venous thrombectomy codes (37187-37188). The justification given for this policy is that Noridian believes that coding should be done based on the origin of the thrombus. 

After SCAI sent a letter to the medical directors along with a joint letter with the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), and the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) strongly opposing this policy change, Noridian retired its local coverage article on pulmonary thromboembolectomy that had an effective date of July 9, 2022. The article was retired on its effective date.