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General Surgery Coding Alert

Reader Question:

Insertion of J-P Drain

Published on Sat Dec 01, 2001

Question: The patient had partial mastectomy with axillary lymph node dissection. Six months later, she returned to see the surgeon with a persistent seroma. A J-P drain was inserted. How should we bill for the insertion of the drain?

Ohio Subscriber
Answer: The correct code is 10160 (puncture aspiration of abscess, hematoma, bulla, or cyst), and it should be associated with diagnosis code 998.13 (seroma complicating a procedure). In this case, no incision and drainage was performed. If the surgeon had to make an incision to drain the seroma, however, the procedure would be coded 10140 (incision and drainage of hematoma, seroma or fluid collection).
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