CPT 48550 Pancreas Procurement Reimbursement | OpenPayer

Summary & Overview

CPT 48550: Pancreas Procurement from Cadaveric Donor

CPT code 48550 denotes the surgical procurement of a pancreas from a cadaveric donor, a critical step in the organ transplantation pathway. The procedure can include a duodenal segment and requires meticulous cold preservation to maintain organ viability until implantation in a recipient with pancreatic failure. Nationally, pancreas procurement is central to solid-organ transplant programs and impacts organ availability, surgical resource allocation, and transplant outcomes.

Key payers covered in this analysis include Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Health, UnitedHealthcare, and Medicare. Readers will find a concise briefing on the clinical context of procurement, typical sites of service, and the kinds of benchmarking and policy issues that influence coverage and payment for donor organ recovery. The publication highlights service-line implications for hospital transplant programs and operating-room resource planning.

This piece provides practical reference material: a breakdown of the procedure’s clinical purpose, an outline of payer coverage landscape, and pointers to the types of benchmarks and policy updates that commonly affect transplant-related billing and reimbursement. Data not available in the input is indicated where applicable.

AetnaBlue Cross Blue ShieldCigna HealthUnitedHealthcareMedicareCPT 48550pancreas procurementorgan procurementtransplant surgerydonor organ recoveryhospital servicessurgical billingcold preservationsolid organ transplant

Billing Code Overview

CPT code 48550 describes the surgical procurement of a pancreas from a cadaveric (nonliving) organ donor. The procedure may include removal of a segment of the duodenum and involves preserving the donor pancreas in a temperature-controlled cold preservation solution until transplantation into a recipient with pancreatic failure.

Service Type: Organ procurement / Donor organ recovery

Typical Site of Service: Hospital operating room / Organ procurement surgical suite

Clinical & Coding Specifications

Clinical Context

A typical patient scenario involves a deceased organ donor in a hospital intensive care unit who has been declared brain dead after catastrophic neurologic injury (for example, traumatic brain injury or intracranial hemorrhage). The organ procurement organization (OPO) coordinates with the donor hospital, transplant surgeons, and the recipient transplant center. After donor evaluation and consent for pancreas donation, a transplant surgery team travels to the donor site or operates within the donor hospital sterile operating room. The team performs a donor pancreatectomy, which may include a segment of the duodenum, and preserves the pancreas in a cold, sterile preservation solution for transport. Clinical workflow steps include donor medical and infectious screening, organ allocation, operating room preparation, organ removal (donor pancreatectomy), back-table preparation and preservation in cold storage, documentation of organ condition and ischemia times, and transport to the recipient center for transplantation.

Coding Specifications

Modifier	Description	When to Use
`00`	No modifier — standard procedural claim	Use for routine donor pancreatectomy without additional circumstance-specific modifiers
`22`

CPT 48554: Cadaveric Pancreas Allograft Implantation, Native Pancreas Retained

CPT-48551-PANCREAS-DONOR-PREPARATION-FOR-TRANSPLANTATION

CPT 48551: Pancreas Donor Preparation for Transplantation

CPT-48552-DONOR-PANCREAS-VEIN-RECONSTRUCTION-ORGAN-PREPARATION

CPT 48552: Donor Pancreas Vein Reconstruction and Organ Preparation

CPT-48556-DONOR-PANCREAS-EXPLANTATION

CPT 48556: Donor Pancreas Explantation for Graft Failure

Taxonomy Code	Specialty	Notes
208000000X	General Surgery	Transplant surgeons often hold general surgery taxonomy with transplant specialization
2080S0125X	Transplant Surgery	Specialty taxonomy for surgeons focused on organ procurement and transplantation
207P00000X	Surgical Oncology	Some transplant surgeons have oncology backgrounds; applicable when teams overlap
207L00000X	Abdominal Surgery	Reflects surgeons focused on abdominal organ procurement and transplantation

Related Diagnoses

ICD-10 Code	Description	Clinical Relevance
`Z52.4`	Donor of organ for transplant	Identifies the patient as an organ donor and is directly relevant for donor procurement procedures
`Z52.81`	Bone marrow donor	Not directly for pancreas but may appear in multiorgan donor contexts; denotes donor status
`R99`	Ill-defined and unknown cause of mortality	May appear in donor records when cause of death is pending or unclear during procurement documentation
`S06.5X9A`	Traumatic subdural hemorrhage with loss of consciousness of unspecified duration, initial encounter	Example primary cause of brain death in a typical donor leading to organ procurement
`I61.9`	Intracerebral hemorrhage, unspecified	Common catastrophic neurologic event that can result in brain death and subsequent organ donation

Related CPT Codes

CPT Code	Description	Relationship to This Procedure
`48550`	Removal of pancreas for transplant (donor pancreatectomy)	Primary procedure: donor organ procurement and preservation for transplant
`48600`	Donor splenectomy, when performed during multiorgan procurement	Performed during multiorgan procurements when spleen removal is required for exposure or allocation
`49650`	Laparoscopic donor nephrectomy, complete	Frequently performed during multiorgan procurement operations when kidney retrieval is also needed (different code for open nephrectomy)
`44320`	Resection, small intestine; single resection and anastomosis, for duodenal segment inclusion	May relate when a duodenal segment is removed with the pancreas and requires separate coding for bowel resection if reportable
`37799`	Unlisted procedure, vascular surgery	Used for unusual vascular reconstruction or procurement-related vascular procedures not described by standard codes

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