General Surgery Coding Alert

Identify diagnosis, too.

If your surgeon treats a patient with Crohn's disease who has both a colon perforation and a small intestine stricture, would you know how to code the case?

Check out the facts of the situation, then try your hand at procedure and diagnosis coding for the situation:

Symptoms: Physician refers to your general surgeon, a patient with diagnosed Crohn's disease. The patient has not been responding to steroid treatment for esophageal stricture, and now exhibits sudden-onset severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and fever.

Procedure: Pre-op x-ray identifies that the esophageal stricture has worsened, effectively obstructing the esophagus. The x-ray also identifies a bowel perforation. Based on this information, the surgeon performs abdominal laparoscopy and removes the affected colon section, joining the two excised ends with anastomosis. The surgeon advances the laparoscope to the region of the esophageal obstruction, and excises a small section, also performing anastomosis at this site.

Got your answers? See third article if you have the coding right.