Draft — pending COA review. Rette derived these criteria from the ACOEM guidelines adopted into the MTUS. They are not COA documents and have not been signed off by a COA physician reviewer.

MTUS Treatment ChecklistbyRette

Utilization Review Checklist

Meralgia Paresthetica

Derived from the ACOEM Hip and Groin Disorders Guideline, edition 29 January 2026, as adopted into the California MTUS 1 August 2026. CPT 64712, 64722. ICD-10 G57.1.

Draft — not reviewed or approved by COA. Prepared by Rette from the ACOEM guideline named above. This is not a COA document and does not reproduce COA’s own checklists.

Patient name: Claim #:

CriteriaCheck if documented

Confirmatory Diagnosis

Required

  • Diagnosis and site of entrapment confirmed by nerve conduction study or MR neurography

    Should have diagnosis and site of entrapment confirmed by either nerve conduction study or MR neurography. — p. 289

Conservative Care

Required

  • Continued symptoms unresponsive to prior treatments, sufficiently severe to warrant invasive treatment

    Indications Patients who both have continued symptoms unresponsive to the above treatments and in whom symptoms are sufficiently severe to warrant invasive treatment. — p. 289

Surgical Considerations (surgical release)

Required

  • Release requested for a select patient

    Surgical release is recommended for treatment of select patients with meralgia paresthetica. — p. 289

Procedures — the guideline treats each separately

Surgical release for meralgia paresthetica

Recommended.

Strength of Evidence — Recommended, Insufficient Evidence (I) · confidence moderate

One requirement here is easy to miss and hard to retrofit: the diagnosis AND THE SITE OF ENTRAPMENT must be confirmed by either a nerve conduction study or MR neurography. A clinical diagnosis alone does not meet it. Arrange the study before filing.

Reviewing this for COA, or think a criterion is wrong?