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Ophthalmology and Optometry Coding Alert

Strabismus:

67311-67318 Success Depends on Detailed Anatomy Understanding

Published on Thu Sep 08, 2011

How many muscles? Horizontal or vertical? The answers will keep your coding from getting crossed up. When an ophthalmologist performs strabismus surgery, it can involve any combination of 12 extraocular muscles. Incorrectly identifying just one of those muscles can lead you to the wrong code -- and take more than $700 in reimbursement out of your practice's pocket. But you don't need a PhD in anatomy to keep the eye muscles straight -- all you need are the answers to these frequently asked questions to guide you toward choosing the right code to report your practice's strabismus treatments. Question 1: How do I pick the appropriate strabismus surgery code based on the ophthalmologist's operative notes? Answer: A little knowledge of the eye's anatomy goes a long way toward understanding strabismus-correcting procedures. Which codes you report depends on the extraocular muscle or muscles the ophthalmologist operated on. Each eye has six extraocular muscles [...]
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