tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2016 Issue 6

You Be the Coder: Check Reason for FNA and Biopsy Together

Question: Our surgeon performed a fine needle aspiration of a mediastinal mass. During an intraoperative consultation, the pathologist said that the specimen was inadequate due to much contamination with blood cells. For that reason, the surgeon then performed a needle core biopsy of the mass. Can we code for both procedures? California Subscriber Answer: You should be able to code both of these procedures in this case. You didn’t mention that your surgeon used imaging guidance, so the correct code for the fine needle aspiration (FNA) would be 10021 (Fine needle aspiration; without imaging guidance). The code for...

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