General Surgery Coding Alert

Question: My physician removed 14 premalignant lesions from a patients face, neck, and scalp during one session. How should I bill for this procedure?

North Dakota Subscriber

Answer: You will bill out one instance of 17000 (Destruction [e.g., laser surgery, electrosurgery, cryosurgery,chemosurgery, surgical curettement],premalignant lesions [e.g., actinic keratoses]; first lesion) and then 13 instances of 17003 (& second through 14 lesions, each &).

Check with your payer: Some payers will want you to bill this sort of procedure on 14 separate lines (17000 once and then 17003 on 13 additional lines). Other payers may ask you to use just two lines -- placing 17000 on one line with a unit count of one and 17003 on the second line with a unit count of 13.