This is a tough one...I was really going with the wording under Modifier 58 where it says "..(a) planned or anticipated (staged)..." since even though the procedure is on the opposite knee it is the same procedure and is was planned and anticipated to be done before the post operative period on the original knee was over. The title is "Staged or Related"..and since this was discussed and planned for in the initial preoperative stage of the first knee, and it is the same procedure just opposite side, seems like it could meet that description.
Of course the argument that 79 is better if the procedure considered "unrelated" since it was the opposite knee also works. The coder will have to decide which better fits the situation.
I'm getting hung up on the same thing - I think it's something that CPT should do a better job of clarifying. Allow me to think out loud here for a second - I'm not trying to debate this with anyone - I don't know the answer...
Really, a doctor could plan to do a different surgery on the same patient every day for a week, but the surgeries could be totally unrelated. If you think about it, except in the case of emergency surgeries, ALL surgeries are planned ahead of time - the only distinction here, is that the patient needed more than one thing operated on, and they decided to do the operations during different sessions.
As I mentioned before, it would have been
possible to perform both surgeries in the same session - they were truly independent procedures, and would have both been payable on the same DOS, if that were a practical way to do that sort of thing. I guess what I'm unclear on, is - does it matter
why the procedures were planned to be performed separately, or should the planning have some correlation to the provider's ability to perform the procedures (or the patient's ability to tolerate both procedures) in one or more sessions?
Just to be the devil's advocate for a second: here's a different example - let's say that a patient needs to have an I&D of a cyst done on her shoulder, and to have some sort of lesion excised from her leg, and figures this all out during a well check. She could get them both done at once, but the doctor's only got open appointments that week, and the appointment times available don't work well with the patient's busy schedule, so they decide to split the procedures up and do them on 2 different days. In a situation like
that, would you consider those procedures staged, simply because they
planned to do them on different days?
Now with
this situation, the impracticality of doing both procedures has a more substantial basis - for the patient's recovery, and their ability to have some sort of mobility during recovery, it becomes necessary to do the procedures at different times. Does the patient's convenience during recovery constitute
medical necessity for performing the procedures on different dates, or is the medical necessity of the procedures' timing determined based
only on what's required to achieve both operations safely and successfully?
I think the answer to that riddle would shed some light on this issue - I'm interested in finding out the answer, though - I'll do some digging to see if I can come up with anything. Surely this isn't the first time someone's had this conundrum...
(btw...Remember that show "The Swan", where they took those ladies and gave them a complete plastic surgery makeover within a couple of months? Can you imagine trying to code that?!?)