Pulmonology Coding Alert

You can report thoracoscopic procedure(s) with ease if you follow a few simple and easy-to-remember guidelines. Here is a coding refresher to help master your thoracoscopy reporting.Bundle Diagnostic Scopes With Surgical ScopesIf during the diagnostic thoracoscopy procedure the physician decides to perform a surgical thoracoscopy (32650-+32678), you should report the appropriate surgical thoracoscopy code only. You should not report the diagnostic thoracoscopy separately even though the observations found during this procedure prompted the surgeon to go in for a surgical thoracoscopy. "The most comprehensive procedure is reported in this case. NCCI also prevents reporting of the diagnostic throacoscopy (32601) with and surgical thoracoscopy code," says Carol Pohlig, BSN, RN, CPC, ACS, senior coding and education specialist at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medicine in Philadelphia.Example: If you read that a 55-year-old male patient was assessed for chest pain and difficulty with breathing at your facility and your physician performed [...]