tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2017 Issue 3

You Be the Coder: Spotlight Wound Size for Graft Code

Question: Our surgeon excised a 4.5 cm melanoma with a 2.5 cm margin from a patient’s left arm. The surgeon then applied a 40 sq cm skin substitute graft with sutures, and dressed the area. Should we code this as 15271 and +15272 based on the graft size? Iowa Subscriber Answer: No, you should not report these graft codes based on the graft size, but instead, you should base your code selection on the wound size. In this case, you should report 15271 (Application of skin substitute graft to trunk, arms, legs, total wound surface area...

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.