I have a patient who had a series of operations in February for treatment of an infected pseudoaneurysm of a previously placed femoral bypass. Two months after the operations the patient is back with a thigh wound infection.
The surgeon did an Incision and Debridement, Lavage and VAC placement. I used CPT codes 11045, 11042 and 97605. I put modifier 78 on all of these codes and the only thing the insurance is paying for is the 97605. Should 11045 and 11042 have had a different modifer like 79?
Obviously the patient developed a fever and the infection on a previously operated wound so it was unplanned return to the OR but..... could it possibly be 79? Unrelated procedure? Extremely confused about the modifiers. And I guess I was thinking when a complication arose, we could code for that or is a wound infection not complication enough?
The surgeon did an Incision and Debridement, Lavage and VAC placement. I used CPT codes 11045, 11042 and 97605. I put modifier 78 on all of these codes and the only thing the insurance is paying for is the 97605. Should 11045 and 11042 have had a different modifer like 79?
Obviously the patient developed a fever and the infection on a previously operated wound so it was unplanned return to the OR but..... could it possibly be 79? Unrelated procedure? Extremely confused about the modifiers. And I guess I was thinking when a complication arose, we could code for that or is a wound infection not complication enough?