Wiki anesthesia coding

[AudreyS]

I work for a group of Anesthesiologists and I had a case where a patient had implanted plates removed from her ribs. I coded 20680 and the code crosswalks to
01360 for anesthesia. On the EOB that the patient received the procedure description said she had work done on her femur. She called the insurance company and our office to dispute the
procedure code. In the CPT book there is NO mention of femur, only removal of deep implant. What would I do in this case and why does the anesthesia CPT code coincide with the procedure code?

 

[CodingKing]

femur is in the code description

01360 - Anesthesia for all open procedures on lower one-third of femur

Looking at my ASA crosswalk through findacode it says 01360 is the primary but there are 13 alternates. You would have to go to the anatomy specific categories and select from there. I'm not familiar with primary over alternates but assume they pick the most commonly used code for the primary.