General Surgery Coding Alert

Your surgeons’ op reports might use a variety of terms for small intestine resection procedures, depending on the portion removed and the reattachment.

We’ve scoped out a few of the common words you’ll need to know to select the proper small intestine resection code:

• Anastomosis: Reattachment of the resulting proximal and distal portions of a resection, such as the small intestine
• Atresia (of small intestine): Malformation of the small bowel involving blockage or disconnection that interferes with the flow of nutrition through the digestive tract
• Excision/resection: Procedure in which the surgeon removes a section of an organ such as the small intestine
• Enterectomy: Small intestine resection
• Enterostomy: Procedure in which the surgeon makes a hole into the patient’s small intestine to create a side opening for an anastomosis, bring out a stoma, or even to insert a feeding tube
• Small bowel: Synonym for small intestine — this is the part of the gastrointestinal tract following the stomach and preceding the large intestine (colon)
• Duodenum: The first section of the small intestine following the stomach and preceding the jejunum
• Jejunum: The middle section of the small intestine following the duodenum and preceding the ileum
• Ileum: The final section of the small intestine following the jejunum and preceding the colon.