Wiki coding help!

[idjimenez]

My physician is going to do a hernia repair on a patient who he said needs staged surgery and will probably be inpatient for 2 - 3 weeks. He mentioned he was going to place some sort of band or strap around the patient's abdomen to tighten him prior to closing. I know this sounds strange, at lease it sounds strange to me, but I didn't get any more information out of him, has anyone ever heard of this or know what my doc could be talking about? I need to call in to start an inpatient authorization and I want to make sure I'm coding it correctly.

He also said, the patient has complete loss of domain with evisceration of intestinal contents into the hernia, if that helps.

 

[daharden]

Is it just an abdominal binder or is it an integral part of the mesh that he is talking about? There might be something for both. In trauma there is an internal device that is Velcro which over time you can eventually remove it and put a piece of mesh in.

 

[mitchellde]

Is your patient morbidly obese? if so you need to code that and be sure it is known for the pre cert, otherwise I have not heard of this being done for any other reason.