Inpatient Facility Coding & Compliance Alert

You Be the Coder:

Choosing Codes With No Pathological Diagnosis

Question: The pathologist examined a portion of rib removed for thoracic outlet syndrome, but didn’t report a pathologic diagnosis. The path report states, “portion of rib, gross identification only.” What code should we assign?
Ohio Subscriber Answer: The correct procedure code is 88300 (Level I - Surgical pathology, gross examination only), but perhaps the ICD-9 code is the [...]
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