Pediatric Coding Alert

Question: A three-year-old child was brought in with multiple friction burns from a treadmill. He had partial thickness friction burns to one hand, both ankles, and one foot. He had a full thickness friction burn to down to the fascia on two fingers. Our provider cleaned all burns with surclens and debrided the loose skin, applied silvadene, and applied gauze and dressings to all burn areas. What codes should we report? Florida Subscriber Answer: You'll need to calculate the total body surface area (TBSA) affected by the burns (based on the documentation) to code accurately. The two possibilities for the partial thickness burns are 16020 (Dressings and/or debridement of partial-thickness burns, initial or subsequent; small [less than 5% total body surface area]) or 16025 (... medium [e.g., whole face or whole extremity, or 5% to 10% total body surface area]). Full-thickness burns often require skin grafting. If that's the case [...]