Orthopedic Coding Alert

Question: Our surgeon performed a left knee medial collateral ligament reconstruction. We are looking at 27405, but we aren’t sure if this is accurate. What code should we use?

Tennessee Subscriber

Answer: Code 27405 (Repair, primary, torn ligament and/or capsule, knee; collateral) would be accurate if the physician performed a repair, but it’s not the right code for a reconstruction with graft.

Instead, you should report a code from the 27427-27429 series (Ligamentous reconstruction [augmentation], knee …), depending on whether the repair was extra-articular (27427), intra-articular (27428) or both intra-articular and extra-articular (27429) – although remember that MCL repairs/reconstructions are technically considered only extra-articular.