tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2012 Issue 5

You Be the Coder: Look to Musculoskeletal Codes for Lipoma

Question: Our surgeon excised a 3.4 cm lipoma in the sacral region. Should I choose a code from the benign (114xx) or malignant (116xx) lesion excision codes? Or should we report 49215? Kansas Subscriber Answer: None of the codes you mentioned would be appropriate for a sacral lipoma excision. Instead, you should report a soft tissue tumor code based on the location, depth, and size of the lipoma. Here's why: Lipomas are benign fatty tumors that generally occur blow the skin. You should not choose a code from the integumentary system to describe a lipoma excision. If the...

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.