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Orthopedic Coding Alert

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Refine Your Tibial Shaft Fractur

Published on Mon May 09, 2011

Look to casts, nails, plates and fixators to guide your coding. While tibial fracture coding can hinge on fracture type -- open or closed-- you'll need to know what was done to reduce the fracture and align the bone. Missing crucial details like whether screws, nails, plates, fixators were used or just a cast sufficed to immobilize the fracture can downgrade your full reimbursement for these services. Incidence: Tibial fractures are a common consequence to high speed trauma. However, there can also be stress fractures due to repeated microtrauma of frequent activity. "Falls, sports injuries, vehicular accidents, and overuse are common causes of a broken leg," says Leslie A. Follebout, CPC, COSC, senior orthopaedic coder & auditor with The Coding Network, Beverly Hills, California. Understand 'Fibular' in Descriptor When you look at the codes for the fractures in the leg bones, you will see that these codes are mainly directed [...]
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