# Wound Care Debridement and E/M in outpatient setting



## 5kelly (Jul 31, 2009)

The hospital I work for has several Wound Care Clinics, we cannot get the office visits paid because it is considered a "hospital setting" any coding advice. I have advised the coders not to code the office visit when a debridement has been done but often patients come back just for a follow up and we cannot get reimbursed on those.


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## carrieestes (Jul 31, 2009)

5kelly said:


> The hospital I work for has several Wound Care Clinics, we cannot get the office visits paid because it is considered a "hospital setting" any coding advice. I have advised the coders not to code the office visit when a debridement has been done but often patients come back just for a follow up and we cannot get reimbursed on those.



Are you wound care clinics outpatient clinics?

The debridement codes have different global periods... are you using the 11040-11044?

11040-11042 have no global and 11043-11044 have a 10 day. 

If your an OP facility, we use 99024 if the follow up is within the global which is not reimbursed. It's more for internal tracking. I hope that helps.


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## mitchellde (Jul 31, 2009)

Are you billing for the physician or the facility?  If you are billing for the facility then there is no global, and the visits should be reimbursed.


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## wcsc1120 (Jul 31, 2009)

I worked hospital physician, I posted some charge for wound clinic. If have office visit I will put E/M code with modifier "PC" and "26", we got pay. Ihope is help


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## mitchellde (Jul 31, 2009)

You posted a charge for the hospital clinic?  or for your physician, I am sorry I am still not understanding.  However you do not use a 26 modifer with the E&M and I am not familiar with a PC modifer, what is it for?


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## 5kelly (Aug 3, 2009)

They are outpatient clinics and there have been some questions as to whetehr or not be should be using codes from 11040--11044 or using codes from 97597-97606, and yes your answer was helpful on the follow up visits.


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## mitchellde (Aug 3, 2009)

You can use codes from either section depending on what is done and who is doing it, and what revenue center you are using, for the facility billing.  I agree that if the patient was scheduled to come in for a debridement and taht is what is performed then there should be bo visit level.  However for the followup check for the facility there can and should be a clinic charge.


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