General Surgery Coding Alert

Are you missing out on hundreds? Now's the time to find out. Coding scope procedures, such as colonoscopies and anoscopies, is commonplace in a general surgery practice. But are you sure you-re capturing every dollar your physicians deserve when they perform multiple scope procedures in one surgical session? There are times when you can report multiple scope procedures together, but if you don't know what they are you could be leaving money on the table. Check Parent Codes Before Billing Multiple Scopes Colonoscopies, small bowel endoscopies, and anoscopies are all endoscopic procedures. The first question you need to ask when coding multiple endoscopic procedures during the same surgical session is: Are the endoscopies the surgeon performed in the same code "family"? Pointer: If the answer is yes, the multiple-scope rule specifies that you cannot report the base, or "parent," code separately with a more extensive endoscopy in that same code [...]