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Neurosurgery Coding Alert

READER QUESTIONS:

Corpectomy Includes Diskectomy

Published on Tue Jul 12, 2005

Question: When reporting corpectomy, can I bill separately for the decompression/diskectomy above and below the level of the corpectomy? For example, if I report a C5 corpectomy as 63081, can I also report 63075 for the C4/C5 diskectomy and 63076 for the C5/C6 diskectomy?


Minnesota Subscriber
Answer: No, you should not separately report diskectomy above and below the level of corpectomy.

The corpectomy codes (63081-63091, 63101-63103, and 63300-63308) in general - and 63081 (Vertebral corpectomy [vertebral body resection], partial or complete, anterior approach with decompression of spinal cord and/or nerve root[s]; cervical, single segment) in particular - include disk removal, decompression of nerve roots and/or spinal canal and preparation of endplates for fusion for the areas directly above and below the level of corpectomy.

For this reason, you should not report 63075 (Diskectomy, anterior, with decompression of spinal cord and/or nerve root[s], including osteophytectomy; cervical, single interspace) or +63076 (... cervical, each additional interspace [list separately in addition to code for primary procedure]) in addition to 63081.
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