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General Surgery Coding Alert

CCI 18.2:

Rethink Your Hiatal/Diaphragmatic Hernia Coding Boundaries

Published on Sun Aug 12, 2012

Pay attention to more specific 'abdominal' CPT® sections, too. Before you consider billing a diagnostic gastric intubation and aspiration with any upper GI endoscopy, you better check the latest Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) edits. That's because the update includes over 20 new edit pairs with 43756 (Duodenal intubation and aspiration, diagnostic, includes image guidance; single specimen [e.g., bile study for crystals or afferent loop culture]), along with lots of other changes you need to know about now. CMS released CCI version 18.2, effective July. 1, revealing 2,521 new active pairs and only 88 code pair deletions, according to Frank D. Cohen, MPA, MBB, senior analyst with Frank Cohen Group, LLC. Choose One Hernia Code After moving open hiatal hernia repair codes from CPT®'s diaphragm section to the esophagus section in 2011, CCI edits are catching up with a host of new edit pairs. All of the following new edit pairs [...]
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