Outpatient Facility Coding Alert
Simple Wart Excisions for Multiple Locations Still Mean 17110
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Question: Our physician performed two wart excisions (one from the elbow, the other from the knee). He performed fulguration of the base for both to prevent seeding, then completed primary closure with sutures. Would 17110 be the correct code for all of this or do I also need to add repair of the areas (knee and elbow)?
Alabama Subscriber
Answer: Only report 17110 (Destruction [e.g., laser surgery, electrosurgery, cryosurgery, chemosurgery, surgical curettement], of benign lesions other than skin tags or cutaneous vascular proliferative lesions; up to 14 lesions) since the diagnosis is common warts (verruca vulgaris) or 078.10 (Viral warts, unspecified). The repair is simple and not reported separately here.
Caution: Code 17110 is for destruction of benign lesions only, which includes laser surgery, electrosurgery, cryosurgery, chemosurgery, and surgical curettement. Guidelines for assigning code units for premalignant lesions (17000-17004) differ from those for benign lesions, so be sure to read the code descriptors carefully.
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