Revenue code 0270
Medical and surgical supplies
The supplies line: gloves, gauze, tubing, catheters, splint material, surgical kits. 0270 is the general code; 0272 is sterile supplies, 0278 is implants. On an itemized bill each item appears with a quantity and a charge.
Where this line goes wrong
Routine supplies should not be separately charged
Medicare and most payers treat basic items used on every patient (gloves, sheets, ordinary dressings) as part of the room or procedure charge. Separate line items for them are a known overbilling pattern and a fair thing to ask to have removed.
Kit plus contents
A surgical or IV start kit billed as one line, and its individual contents billed again as separate lines, is double billing. Look for a kit line and then for its components underneath it.
Want to know if this line is right on your own bill? Upload it to a free mediloop account. An automatic first look reads the charges and shows what looks worth questioning, usually in about a minute.
Check my bill for freeCheck it, then ask
- 1
Ask for the itemized bill and go through the supply lines one by one.
- 2
Flag routine items (gloves, gowns, basic dressings) and ask why they are billed separately.
- 3
Check that no kit's contents are also billed individually.
- 4
For implants (0278), ask for the invoice cost if the charge is very large.
The full walkthrough for this kind of bill: Your bill came in above the estimate.
Upload the bill to a free mediloop account. An automatic first look reads the charges and shows what looks worth questioning, usually in about a minute. If you want a specialist to dispute it for you, it is a flat $129, refunded in full if the bill isn't lowered by at least $129.
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Codes that travel with this one
People also ask
Is it normal to be charged for gloves?
It happens, but it is not normal under most payer rules, which treat them as part of the overhead already covered by the room or procedure charge. It is one of the easiest lines to get removed.
Sources
This page explains a billing code in general terms. It is not a coding, legal or medical opinion about your bill, and the code descriptions are mediloop's own plain-English summaries, not the official CPT descriptors, which are owned by the American Medical Association. Whether a charge was correct depends on the record of your visit and your payer's rules.