Wiki This may be a dumb question...but?

[bpowell121774]

We had a patient come in and our general surgeon did a wide local excision of the pinkey toe for melanoma and when the path came back he still had positive margins so he ended up amputating the toe. I would say that he would have to bill for the amputation of the toe and not a re-excision of a melanoma, anyone elses input would be appreciateded.

 

[baanelson@gmail.com]

There is no dumb question first of all and I think you are right. In my opinion, I think that Amputation will cost more than excision of the pinkey toe for melanoma.

 

[bpowell121774]

You would think so but actually it does not. My thinking on this is the end result is no toe so you would have to bill for the end result?? He did re-excise it but the re-excision resulted in an amputation and since there is a code for that I would think that would be the correct way to bill it.