Billing and Coding: Sacral Nerve Stimulation for Urinary and Fecal Incontinence

Sacral nerve stimulation is covered for urinary urge incontinence, urgency-frequency syndrome, and urinary retention (both test stimulation and permanent implantation) when patients are refractory to conventional therapy, are surgical candidates, and demonstrate ≥50% improvement on test stimulation measured by voiding diaries. Noridian covers SNS for fecal incontinence effective March 1, 2012, only for chronic fecal incontinence (>2 episodes/week and >6 months duration or >12 months postpartum) after failure of conservative therapy and a successful percutaneous test (≥50% sustained improvement >1 week); SNS is excluded for certain anorectal pathologies, chronic inflammatory bowel disease, neurologic causes, and is considered experimental for chronic constipation and chronic pelvic pain.

"Sacral nerve stimulation (SNS) is covered for urinary urge incontinence."