General Surgery Coding Alert

Compare your coding from the quiz on page 25 with our experts' solutions.Read on to see how your answers stack up -- and how much money your choices cost (or saved) your surgeon.Solution 1: Partial Mastectomy Following Biopsy Code the breast biopsy as 19101 (Biopsy of breast; open, incisional). The correct diagnosis code for the findings of infiltrating ductal carcinoma is 174.2 (Malignant neoplasm of upper-inner quadrant of female breast).For the return to surgery for a partial mastectomy, you should bill 19301 (Mastectomy, partial (e.g., lumpectomy, tylectomy, quadrantectomy, segmentectomy). The second surgery occurs during the postoperative period of the initial procedure, 19101, which has a 10-day global period. That means you'll need to append modifier 58 (Staged or related procedure or service by the same provider during the postoperative period) to 19301.Hint: You can find the global days for a surgical procedure by selecting "payment policy indicators" as the type of [...]