Orthopedic Coding Alert

Timeframes, types of medications dictate your coding.Physicians administer hyaluronate or hyaluronic acid injections (commonly known by brand names Synvisc, Synvisc-One, Hyalgan, Supartz, and others) for osteoarthritis of the knee, but you need to look beyond a simple code when reporting the procedures.Code confusion: Hyaluronate injections have had its own J code for some time, "but it has been changed from 'unspecified' to its own assigned code, back to 'unspecified' and then back to an assigned HCPCS code," says Jacqui Jones, office manager for an orthopedic physician practice in Klamath Falls, Ore.Now that all hyaluronate injections fall under the same code, here are three checkpoints to keep in mind and help you calculate correctly.Verify the Type of MedicationPhysicians use hyaluronate injections to help alleviate the patient's pain due to osteoarthritis of the knee. The medications achieve the same purpose, and you report both types of injections with J7325 (Hyaluronan or derivative, [...]