Reader Questions:
Consult Your Doc For Clot Procedure Details
Published on Mon Jul 26, 2010
Question: My physician performed an excision due to a painful clotted vein in the lower extremity. I cannot find a code specific to this type of surgery. Is there a code that would be appropriate than 28899? My surgeon thought maybe 27632 might work.Codify MemberAnswer: This is a difficult coding challenge without having more information. Depending on the clinical situation, there are a few codes that might be appropriate, as follows:Code 27632 (Excision, tumor, soft tissue of leg or ankle area subcutaneous; 3 cm or greater) would be appropriate if the physician thought it was a tumor but found out subsequently it was just a clot.If the physician had previously performed a procedure on the patient, which ended up with a painful clot, he might consider billing 35860 (Exploration for postoperative hemorrhage, thrombosis or infection; extremity).If it was a varicose vein, you might want to look at some of those [...]