Ophthalmology and Optometry Coding Alert

Question: Are all foreign body removals (FBRs) within the same eye bundled?

Arizona Subscriber

Answer: This is true if the ophthalmologist removes multiple foreign bodies (FBs) only from the same part of the eye. If, however, they remove FBs from different parts of the same eye — the cornea and the conjunctiva, for example — you can separately report a code for each location.

Documentation is the key here, and the physician should ideally use a diagram of the eye where they can indicate the specific location, depth of the foreign body(ies), and description of the removal procedure.