# can abscess and cellulitis be in same site?



## GAcoder (Jun 17, 2016)

Patient is diagnosed with abscess and cellulitis in one site between breasts.  Should both codes be coded or just abscess?  Treated with antibiotic.
Thank you


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## CodingKing (Jun 17, 2016)

If both are documented you need to code both.


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## cgaston (Jun 20, 2016)

L03.313 (cellulitis of chest wall) has an excludes note for N61 (abscess of breast) so you should not bill them together.

I know our software will flag claims if we bill codes with "excludes notes" together.


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## CodingKing (Jun 20, 2016)

cgaston said:


> L03.313 (cellulitis of chest wall) has an excludes note for N61 (abscess of breast) so you should not bill them together.
> 
> I know our software will flag claims if we bill codes with "excludes notes" together.



I see an excludes2 which means you can code both if necessary


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## mitchellde (Jun 20, 2016)

cgaston said:


> L03.313 (cellulitis of chest wall) has an excludes note for N61 (abscess of breast) so you should not bill them together.
> 
> I know our software will flag claims if we bill codes with "excludes notes" together.



In ICD-10 CM there are two types of excludes notes.  Exclude 1 means you cannot code these together, excludes 2 means it is not included here and if documentation supports both conditions, you just code both codes to indicate both conditions.  Your software should not be editing out the excludes 2 conditions.


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## cgaston (Jun 20, 2016)

What _should _happen and what _actually_ happens are usually two different things. I didn't write the program, I just have to work around it.


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## CodingKing (Jun 20, 2016)

cgaston said:


> What _should _happen and what _actually_ happens are usually two different things. I didn't write the program, I just have to work around it.



This is something they can likely fix.


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