Oncology & Hematology Coding Alert

Because you work in an oncology office, you-ve probably had a friend -- or a complete stranger -- tell you all about a patient's medical condition.

As an oncology coder, you can use these experiences to test your diagnosis and procedure coding skills. As you read through the following story, fill in the blanks with the appropriate ICD-9 or CPT codes for the conditions described. Then turn to page 62 to compare your responses to the correct codes our experts chose.

My mother was out in the sun a lot when she was younger. She recently saw a specialist for the removal of a malignant melanoma on her forehead (1. ___) [ICD-9].

While I was in grade school, she had a neoplasm of her right breast, which fortunately turned out to be benign (2. ___) [ICD-9].

Several years later, she was diagnosed with cancer in situ of her left kidney (3. ___) [ICD-9].

Unfortunately, the kidney had to be removed. I know she was worried about the outcome, but she was thankful for the continued treatment including an encounter for chemotherapy (4. ___) [ICD-9].
My maternal great aunt also had uterine cancer in her cervical canal (5. ___) [ICD-9].

On my father's side of the family, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer of her liver (6. ___) [ICD-9] that turned out to be inoperable.

Her husband smoked all of his adult life. This was probably the cause for the malignant neoplasm he had on the dorsal surface of his tongue (7. ___) [ICD-9] and the malignant neoplasm on the middle lobe of his left lung (8. ___) [ICD-9].

One of my uncles had metastatic carcinoma of colon to the lungs (9. ___, ___) [ICD-9 (two codes)].

I remember that he underwent a prolonged chemotherapy infusion that lasted more than eight hours using a portable pump (10. ___) [CPT].

Another uncle had metastatic colorectal cancer. His physician noted that his primary site was at the rectosigmoid junction (11. ___) [ICD-9], and the secondary site was his liver (12. ___) [ICD-9].

He underwent palliative treatment (13. ___) [ICD-9] in which the oncologist administered 350 mg/m2 irinotecan intravenously in 500 ml of D5W over a 90-minute period (14. ___) [CPT].