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General Surgery Coding Alert

READER QUESTIONS:

Use Soft Tissue Code for Post-Mastectomy Excision

Published on Wed Apr 27, 2005

Question: How can we code for a patient who has already had a mastectomy due to breast cancer, and must now have a recurrent cancer removed from the chest wall?
Oregon Subscriber
Answer: Remember the patient no longer has a breast, and therefore the surgeon must remove the tissue from the muscle of the chest wall. In this case, you should report 21556 (Excision tumor, soft tissue of neck or thorax; deep, subfascial, intramuscular).
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