# billing 26236/26951



## mrsseeling (Aug 26, 2012)

my husband recently had surgery on the pinky  finger. during the procedure the bone was shaved on both sides (medial and lateral) in order to shave off excess bone formations that formed because of a prior communited fracture that did not heal properly. we got the bill in the mail today for this procedure. the bill of course provided the procedure codes. i looked up the code that the bill had on it (26951: amputation, finger or thumb, primary or secondary, any joint or phalanx, single, including neurectomies: with direct closure). the code that i am thinking should have been documented is (26236: partial excision (caterization, saucerization, or disphysectomy) bone (eg. osteomyelitis): distal phalanz of finger.) his finger is still there 100%. when i think about code 26951 i invision that the finger was taken off (amputated) in some extent resulting in a "numb" if you will. however, because my husbands finger is still attatched and you cannot even tell that the surgery was done (besides the healing process) i think that the amputation (26951) code is inappropriate. is there a difference between these codes (26236 and 26951) that i am not noticing? what does this sound like to everyone else? (i plan on getting the dr. surgerical notes asap to review them and see if i am missing something else. thanks in advance.


----------

