Medicare guidelines specify that for laboratory tests to be considered as covered services, they must be reasonable and necessary for diagnosis and treatment of illness or injury. Laboratory services that are performed as a part of a routine examination, in the absence of symptoms or diagnoses, are not covered. When screening services are performed as part of a routine exam, they should be reported with the appropriate ICD-9 CM screening code or narrative. Claims reported with only routine diagnosis codes (V70.0 – V70.9) will be denied as non-covered screening service.All physicians must indicate an appropriate disease related diagnosis, symptom, and/or condition in the form of an ICD-9-CM code or narrative on the claim to document the medical necessity of each test. If no diagnosis is reported, the service may be rejected and must be resubmitted with the required information. Independent laboratories are required to report diagnosis information on all services with limited coverage.