General Surgery Coding Alert

Get ready for vascular and skin changes, too. Have you ever been baffled trying to distinguish between an acellular dermal replacement and an acellular dermal allograft? You'll wonder no more, now that CPT 2012 scraps six families of codes in favor of one new skin-substitute-graft family. We've got a look at these changes and more, so read on for tips on how to code your general surgery claims in 2012. Distinguish Paracentesis, Lavage Prior to Jan.1, 2012, abdominal paracentesis and peritoneal lavage shared codes -- meaning that you couldn't distinguish which procedure your surgeon actually performed. Plus, you needed to know whether your surgeon was performing an initial service or a subsequent peritoneal procedure, a fact that was often difficult to ascertain from the surgeon's op note. CPT® 2012 changes all that by deleting the following codes: 49080 -- Peritoneocentisis, abdominal paracentesis, or peritoneal lavage (diagnostic or therapeutic); initial 49081 -- ... subsequent, [...]