Wiki Work descriptors

[losborn]

I just read the article by Faith C.M.McNicholas in Health Care Business about Same Day E/M coding. In her article she references the work descriptor for CPT 11100. I tried to find her reference for this, but cannot. I have seen work descriptors in CPT Assistant occasionally, but not altogether.
Can someone either put me in touch with Ms McNicholas, or clue me in to where I might find these? Thanks

 

[CatchTheWind]

Ms. McNichols is the Government Affairs liaison at the AAD. If your doc is a member, you can call her at 847-240-1829.

There is an AAD article that gives the work descriptors for some common dermatology codes. It also does not site the source except to say that these are "the CPT descriptions." The article is at https://www.aad.org/dw/monthly/2013/july/to-25-or-not-part-two

 

[mitchellde]

I don't know where her descriptors came from but I like "the Coders Desk Reference for Procedures". I think it is Contexo now that publishes this book. It has always been my right hand when coding CPT codes.

 

[suemt]

From CDR (as mitchellde says, an excellent resource):

11100-11101
The physician removes a biopsy sample of skin, subcutaneous tissue, and/or mucous membrane for histologic study under a microscope. A single lesion is biopsied in 11100. Report 11101 for each separate lesion biopsied in addition to the primary procedure. Some normal tissue adjacent to the diseased tissue is also removed for comparison purposes. The excision site may be closed simply or may be allowed to granulate without closure.

 

[losborn]

Cdr

I have the CDR, but it isn't nearly as complete as the examples in the article. I often have to educate providers on why they failed an audit, so having ALL that information would be great!