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Orthopedic Coding Alert

Reader Question :

Report 76040 for Bone Length Studies

Published on Sun Jun 01, 2003

Question: We performed a "long cassette whole leg study" on an 11-year-old patient. The report discusses comparisons on tibia, femur, femoral head and talar dome. Should we report any special code for a patient this young? Missouri Subscriber Answer: During leg length studies, the clinician usually x-rays hips, knees and ankle joints on one film and exposes a radiopaque ruler on the x-ray to evaluate one leg against the other. If this describes what your practice documented, you should report 76040 (Bone length studies [orthoroentgenogram, scanogram]). There are no specific codes to denote the patient's age in this series, so this code is appropriate.  
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