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Gastroenterology Coding Alert

Coding Tactics:

Strategies Help Improve Your Endoscopy Through Stoma Reporting

Published on Wed Sep 12, 2012

Multiple endoscopic rules don't apply for simultaneous sigmoidoscopy. When your gastroenterologist performs a colonoscopy through a stoma, don't make the mistake of reporting this procedure using colonoscopy code sets (45378 -- 45385). You will have to use another set of codes to accurately capture reporting for these procedures. Check the Basic Procedure When your gastroenterologist performs an endoscopic procedure through a stomal opening, your reporting primarily depends on the previous surgical procedure when the stoma was created. If the initial procedure was a colectomy with an ileostomy (the end of the ileum is connected to the stoma), you will have to report an endoscopy through stoma using ileoscopy through the stoma codes (44380 -- 44382, Ileoscopy, through stoma...). If a partial colectomy and a colostomy (the colon is connected to the stoma) were performed earlier, then an endoscopic procedure through stoma should be reported using colonoscopy through stoma codes (44388 -- 44397, Colonoscopy [...]
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