88331 is used for Pathology consultation during surgery; first tissue block, with frozen section, single specimen.
To elaborate a bit more... the pathologist is on call. When needed, the surgeon will call the pathologist into the surgical suite where (pathologist) will immediately freeze the removed section, examine it and report an immediate diagnosis to the surgeon. This all happens while the patient is lying on the table. The surgeon, at this point, will decide if he/she needs to continue or if necessary section has been removed and surgery can be completed.
This code, 88331, is used to describe an intraoperative consultation with frozen section. How the specimen is reviewed during the intraoperative consultation is decided by the pathologist to make the most accurate diagnosis. Intraoperative consultations may be gross only (88329), cytologic (smears, slides, etc. 88333,88334), frozen section (88331,88332) or a combination.
Creating a frozen section without it being part of an intraoperative consultation would not support code 88331.