Wiki surgical coding

[lalalisa]

Doctor had patient in office for trigger finger release. When she did the incision,there was a mass on the tendon sheath that she removed. After doing that she did the trigger finger release. She is coding 26055 and 26116. Can we charge both codes??

 

[surgonc87]

There is a CCI with those two, also mass seems incidental, same area so it cannot even be separately identifiable...

MS

 

[ccardella]

Yes, but make sure you append modifier -59 for separate procedure. Also, the icd.9 for trigger finger must link to the 26055, and the icd.9 for the tumor/lesion links to 26115.