Forgot to add. This is outdated but good concepts. There is guidance in CPT Asst. for some of the arthroplasty revisions and AAOS has good info on it. https://www.aaos.org/aaosnow/2013/feb/managing/managing7/The patient had a septic hip. The physician removes the femoral head and places an articulating antibiotic spacer. The patient does not have a total hip. The physician spent 3 hours for the procedure. CPT code 11981 does not see to capture the amount of work that was performed. Any suggestions on what CPT code to use?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Oh gotcha. I thought you were talking about an infected THA. Missed the fact that the pt has their native hip! I've had this discussion only a couple times before w/ providers. It's more like arthrotomy hip for infection and a non-bio drug implant for planned removal later to convert to either a final total (?) or final bipolar (?). Without seeing the op note or plan you could maybe call it 27030 and 20704. I might venture more to call it 27125. Even though they are planning to stage and this is temporary it's essentially what was performed (27125). The pt will be w/ this abx prosthesis for a duration until the infection clears. When they remove it later you can call it either 27132 (if the convert to a THA), or 27091 if it requires longer abx spacer treatment, or maybe 27125 again but the payer may not go for that.Thank you but this is not for a revision of an infected total. The patient did not have a total hip. This is his original hip.
Any suggestions??
Thanks