General Surgery Coding Alert

Presented by Kim Garner, CPC, CCS-P, CHCC The following supplement to General Surgery Coding Alert is the transcript of a teleconference presented by The Coding Institute. To obtain the slides for the conference, please log on to our Online Subscription System at http://codinginstitute.com/login and download the current issue, and the slides will be contained therein. If you're not sure how to use the Online Subscription System or need help downloading the issue, please contact our customer service department at 1-800-508-2582 or service@medville.com, and one of our representatives will be able to assist you.

The speaker for the teleconference, Kim Garner, CPC, CCS-P, CHCC, is an independent coding and reimbursement consultant, providing audit, training and oversight of coding and reimbursement functions. She is also an approved coding instructor for the American Academy of Professional Coders Professional Medical Coding Curriculum. Kim has worked with providers in virtually all specialties, including general surgery, ob-gyn, oncology, podiatry, internal medicine and more. She has spoken at the national conference of the American Academy of Professional Coders and at numerous other programs. Thank you Erica and I am glad to be with you all today because of some issues that we found in breast surgery and breast procedures.  I would just take a minute to tell you how I know what I know.  I started in coding and reimbursement over 20 years ago and worked in family practice, but then I went to work for a general surgery group who did quite a few breast procedures.  We had mostly general surgeons, but we did have one specific oncology surgery specialist, and of course he did mostly breast surgeries.  That was a fairly new area of general surgery many years ago and we did a lot convincing of payers and working with coding consultants, consulting with the AMA on correct coding.  So a lot of this information that I am giving you today I got from the trenches where I was actually working - coding and billing these every day and fighting with insurance companies every day.  Hopefully, I can pass this information onto you and help you in daily quest as well. 

I am wanting to go over some anatomy and terminology for the breast.  I found that sometimes we coders may get thrown in and not truly understand a lot of the anatomy and terminology of what we are doing, so I am just giving you some anatomy and terminology.  I am going to define the most common procedures that we see.  I am going to discuss some coding challenges with you.  I am also going to discuss some E&M challenges with you because, yes, [...]