Wiki Billing for Two Procedures on One Location

[neballou722@gmail.com]

Good afternoon all!
We performed a biopsy on a patient's left lower leg to send out to a pathologist for confirmation that it is a skin cancer. While the patient was here, she refused to come back for further treatment and told our physician that if she believed it to be a skin cancer she wanted the removal procedure done that same day (as a precaution). We ended up also performing an EDC procedure on the left lower leg-which is one of our standard skin cancer removal methods. How do we bill for that? Can we bill both the biopsy CPT (11100) and the Destruction of a Malignant Lesion (17262) code for the same location since they were both done? Any help is much appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[thomas7331]

The biopsy is a component of the EDC so can't be billed separately if done on the same site and at the same encounter. The 'patient convenience' of not having to return to the office would not considered a medically necessary reason for separating the charges.

 

[mitchellde]

You can use a modifier if the patient was removed from the procedure area and had to be re preped for the second procedure. The 58 works good for this but the documentation must be spectacular.