tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2020 Issue Q1

You Be the Coder: Don’t Miss Laparotomy Pay

Question: Our surgeon returns a patient to the OR four days following an open partial colectomy due to increasing abdominal pain, bloating, and suppurative inflammation of the wound site. The surgeon opens the surgical site and performs lavage to cleanse and view organs. Should we report this as 49084? Iowa Subscriber Answer: No, code 49084 (Peritoneal lavage, including imaging guidance, when performed) is not the appropriate code to report the surgery you describe. Although the note states that the surgeon performs lavage, that’s really just a small part of the work. In fact, 49084 typically involves just a...

To read the full article, sign in and subscribe to tci General Surgery Coding Alert.


Leverage vital, to-the-point monthly guidance to boost your reporting accuracy and your coding know-how. We make it convenient for your team to stay informed, compliant, and profitable with a subscription to TCI’s General Surgery Coding Alert.

  • Current newsletters added each month
  • Fully searchable archives - over 2100 articles
  • ALL years/issues back to 1999 organized by year and issue
  • Codes mentioned in articles are linked to Code Information pages
  • Code Information pages link back to related articles
Access to this feature is available in the following products:
  • tci General Surgery Coding Alert +Archives

demo
request yours today
 subscribe
start today
 newsletter
free subscription

Thank you for choosing Find-A-Code, please Sign In to remove ads.