Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Tip: Make sure you check coding guidelines.

Given a narrative diagnosis in a breast case pathology report, are you up to the challenge of assigning the correct ICD-10-CM code?

Look at the following examples, then try your hand at assigning the proper code(s) before turning to the solutions.

Question 1: Following a biopsy procedure from the upper inner and upper outer left-breast quadrants, the pathology report returns a diagnosis of lobular carcinoma. How would you report this, specifically considering any further information you might need to ensure accurate code assignment?

Question 2: How would you code a breast lesion excision from a male patient’s right nipple and areola diagnosed in the pathology report as infiltrating ductal carcinoma?

Question 3: The pathologist assigns a diagnosis of lipoma for a patient’s breast biopsy. What ICD-10-CM code would you use in this case?

Question 4: A patient with a family history of breast cancer has a small lump next to the left nipple, with nipple discharge. Following a biopsy, the pathologist diagnoses papilloma. How should you code this?

Once you’ve tried your hand at answering the questions, turn to the solutions following this article to see how you did.