Wiki excision 5 lipoma's thru 3 incisions

[hunters]

I have a scenario of deep subcu lipoma's excised from the thigh. Specifically...5 lipoma's were excised from 3 incisions. 2 of the lipoma's were so close to the other lipoma's that he just extended his incision to extract 2 lipoma's from the 1st incision.....2 lipoma's from the 2nd incision.....and 1 lipoma from the 3rd incision. I believe we can only bill for 3 excisions but some of my coworkers believe we can bill for all 5. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!! Thank ya kindly,

Sharon Hunter, CPC, CGSC

 

[lindacoder]

I would only bill for the three lesions and add up the length of the excision to get the codes -
ie: one is 2 cm and one is 3 cm so I would chose the greater than 3 cm code.