General Surgery Coding Alert

Tip: Don't count on separate lesion removal payment. When your surgeon performs a wound repair closure, you could be miscoding if you automatically turn to 12001-13160. You need to dig deep into the surgeon's documentation to see if a tissue transfer code is more appropriate -- but knowing the difference between wound repairs and tissue transfers is only the beginning. Ensure your surgeon gets the reimbursement he deserves with three steps. 1. Get to Know the Difference Between Transfers and Repairs For wound closure procedures, you'll first need to decide between wound repair codes 12001-13160 and adjacent tissue transfer codes 14000-14300 (Adjacent tissue transfer or rearrangement ...). The basics: In simplest terms, if your surgeon only cleans and sutures the wound you'll choose a simple, intermediate, or complex repair code (12001-13160). If your surgeon documents that he freed tissue from around the wound and rearranged it to cover and repair the [...]