Pediatric Coding Alert

Question: A father brought his daughter to our office and asked the pediatrician to remove a tick from behind the child’s knee. Which code should we report?

Illinois subscriber

Answer: The answer depends on the tick’s status and the pediatrician’s work removing it. If the tick hasn’t buried itself, the pediatrician will probably grasp and remove the tick with forceps. In this case, you’d report an E/M code such as 99212.

In another scenario, the tick’s head is buried, but the remainder is free. The parents tried unsuccessfully to remove the tick before bringing the child to your office. You spend 15 minutes attempting to remove the tick with forceps. You remove the tick, but must dig around with forceps in order to do so.

Once again, you’ll report an E/M code and not foreign body removal since the physician didn’t make an incision. Code 99213 should be adequate.