Wiki coding resources for general surgery

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j.monday7814

j.monday7814

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I am new to general surgery coding and I am wondering what resources everyone uses on a daily basis. My background is in cardiology and I always had several resources for our procedure and surgical coding. So what are some of the best books and reference material for understanding the surgeries and disease process behind the diagnosis coding?

These physicians mostly do cholecystectomy, appendectomy, and hernia repairs, but I know there are other physicians in the group performing other "general" surgeries and I'd like to get a jump start on that coding before another physician gets assigned to me.

Thanks!
 
I am in the opposite circumstance as you - I had been doing surgery and now I am tripping through Cardiology!

I really like the "Coders' Desk Reference for Procedures" by Ingenix-Optium Coding. When I started coding for General Surgery I found it very helpful as it gives you what each procedure entails in lay terms. Also the "General Surgery Coding Companion" is a good book. We also had a subscription to "Supercoder" and "CPT Assistant" where I worked previously and those were a tremendous help. Of course my other great resource is always this forum! :)
 
we subscribe to Optum EncoderPro which automatically gives us the lay description and it is definitely more helpful than anything in the CPT book. In cardiology I had the Optum subscription and 4-5 books plus anything I could find online and I needed all of it to stay on top of all of the bundling guidelines and other weird circumstances that go beyond just NCCI and MUE spreadsheets. I kind of expected the same thing for general surgery but if all I need is my Optum Encoder subscription and one good book then that is fine by me!!
 
j.monday7814 said:
we subscribe to Optum EncoderPro which automatically gives us the lay description and it is definitely more helpful than anything in the CPT book. In cardiology I had the Optum subscription and 4-5 books plus anything I could find online and I needed all of it to stay on top of all of the bundling guidelines and other weird circumstances that go beyond just NCCI and MUE spreadsheets. I kind of expected the same thing for general surgery but if all I need is my Optum Encoder subscription and one good book then that is fine by me!!
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You should be good with EncoderPro! As long as you have the lay descriptions of the surgeries and can access your NCCI edits. General Surgery is definitely more straight forward than Cardiology! Every now and then they will do something that will keep you on your toes, but otherwise hernia repairs, cholecystectomies, appendectomies, etc. are basically just the one code as documented. If your surgeons are like mine, they will try and code for lysis of adhesions which is not separately billable unless they document extremely well the extra time and the difficulty of the lysis - and if that is done, then I would use the -22 modifier.

Good luck in your new adventure!
 
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