Podiatry Coding & Billing Alert

Question: What are the different treatments for verrucae? 

Answer: Your choices range from a variety of treatments. If the patient is on a home treatment regimen, then E/M services may be payable to monitor the treatment course. Applying a home treatment medication in the office is not payable separately from the E/M service.

Destruction of common or plantar warts (a.k.a. varrucae) using office-based medications (such as monochloracetic acid, canthrone, etc.), a CO2 laser and cryosurgery warrant either the 17110 or 17111code. Such treatments are based upon the specific number of lesions you treat, as follows:

• Use 17110 (Destruction [e.g., laser surgery, electrosurgery, cryosurgery, chemosurgery, surgical curettement], of benign lesions other than skin tags or cutaneous vascular lesions; up to 14 lesions) for one to 14 lesions.
• Submit 17111 (...15 or more lesions).

Update: You should no longer use CPT codes 17000 and 17003 for destruction of warts or molluscum contagiosum, as these codes now exclude destruction of benign lesions.

Don't forget: Any local debridement of previously treated tissue would be included in the E/M or destruction procedure performed on that day. There is no extra allowance for use of the laser machine.

Additionally, a podiatrist may treat verrucae using blunt curettage, which requires local anesthesia and blunt enucleating through the skin layers but not past the basement membrane.

Usually, this procedure requires no suturing. You would submit a code from the 17000 series for blunt curettage.