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Orthopedic Coding Alert

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Go In-Depth With Rigid Mallet Toe Treatment

Published on Sun May 03, 2009

Question: A patient came into the office with a rigid mallet toe. How will my physician most likely treat this condition and which CPT codes should I look at? Pennsylvania Subscriber Answer: Your physician may treat a rigid mallet toe with many correction techniques. One popular one is a DuVries arthroplasty done at the distal interphalangeal joint (DIPJ), often accompanied by a flexor digitorum longus tenotomy done through the same incision. You should code this with 28285 (Correction, hammertoe [e.g., interphalangeal fusion, partial or total phalangectomy]). You can separately code for the flexor tendon release using 28232 (Tenotomy, open, tendon flexor; toe,single tendon [separate procedure]). Watch out: The Correct Coding Initiative bundles extensor tenotomy (28234, Tenotomy, open, extensor, foot or toe, each tendon) into 28285. But it doesnt bundle flexor tenotomy (28232) into 28285. Still, some payers may cover the hammertoe correction only when you report it with 28232. Some [...]
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