Internal Medicine Coding Alert

Until now, CPT offered no specific procedural code that represented VAD. This meant coders often had to use an unlisted-procedure code, which was a problem because the American Medical Association and CPT can't collect specific data with unlisted-procedure codes, Hammer says.

A similar wound-therapy code, 97601 (Removal of devitalized tissue from wound[s]; selective debridement, without anesthesia [e.g., high-pressure waterjet, sharp selective debridement with scissors, scalpel and tweezers], including topical application[s], wound assessment, and instruction[s] for ongoing care, per session), which CPT deleted for next year, didn't apply to VAD because it described debridement, Hammer says.

(For more on this code, and the other new 2005 wound-care codes, please see "Get Geared Up for 2 New Wound-Care Codes").

You'll Need Surface-Area Measurements

Instead of creating one code for this procedure, CPT "broke two codes out" to represent the different sizes of wounds that physicians often encounter, Hammer says.

Documentation essential: To ensure you code VAD with confidence, educate your physician about including the wound's measurements in the documentation, Hammer says. That way, you can simply look for the size and link it with the correct code.

In a nutshell, if the physician performs VAD on a wound that's less than or equal to 50 square centimeters, you should report 97605. And when the wound is greater than 50 square centimeters, you should report 97606.