Oncology & Hematology Coding Alert

Question: My documentation shows -malignant melanoma in-situ,- diagnosed from a knee punch biopsy. What diagnosis code should I use?


Illinois Subscriber


Answer: Although 172.7 (Malignant melanoma of skin; lower limb, including hip) is the most likely code, you may want to verify what the physician means by -in situ.-

You probably noticed that malignant melanoma doesn't have an -in situ- classification in your ICD-9 manual, and you won't find melanoma diagnosis codes in the neoplasm table.
 
Instead you-ll find that -Melanoma- has its own entry in the index. The entry includes an instruction that you should typically code melanoma by site, but you should report internal sites as malignant neoplasms of those sites.