tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2005 Issue 4

Correction: Separate Wounds Call for Separate Codes

The February 2005 edition of General Surgery Coding Alert contained an error on page 12 ("CMS Puts the Squeeze on Modifier -59 Claims").The "Unjustified unbundling" example states, "the patient falls and receives three lacerations on his right forearm, including two wounds totaling 5 cm requiring layered closure and a single wound of 2 cm requiring simple repair. In this case, because the simple closure occurs at the same anatomical location as the layered closures, you may not report the simple closure separately."In fact, you can report each separately, using 12032 (Layer closure of wounds of scalp, axillae...

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