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Neurosurgery Coding Alert

Spine Surgery Strategies:

63047, 63015, 63251: Use 3 Case Studies to Guide Your Multilevel Spinal Surgery Reporting

Published on Fri Aug 27, 2010

Bust denials with this advice on the unique coding requirements of laminotomy, laminectomy and excision procedures. If you're reporting multilevel spinal surgeries, such as spinal lesion excisions, laminotomies and laminectomies, you should know that CPT applies three different sets of criteria for these services. To familiarize yourself with the requirements of each category of multilevel/segment codes and improve your coding accuracy, review the following expert-approved case studies.Case Study #1 ("Each-Additional" Codes): Lumbar Laminotomy/Laminectomy The procedure: Due to progressive spinal facet arthropathy with sciatica, the patient requires laminotomy (hemilaminectomy) and nerve root decompression at interspaces L1/ L2, L2/L3 and L3/L4. What to report: Code 63047 (Laminectomy, facetectomy and foraminotomy [unilateral or bilateral with decompression of spinal cord, cauda equine and/or nerve root(s), (e.g., spinal or lateral recess stenosis)], single vertebral segment; lumbar) for the initial interspace (L1/L2) and two units of +63048 (... each additional segment, cervical, thoracic, or lumbar [list [...]
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