Don’t Freeze When It Comes to Coding Plantar Wart Destruction
Question: I have a report for a patient who presented to the podiatrist with a painful wart on the right foot. The provider diagnosed the condition as a plantar wart, and they decided to perform cryotherapy to remove the wart. After the procedure, the patient was advised to keep the area clean and dry. What codes should I report? AAPC Forum Subscriber Answer: You’ll assign a destruction code to report the wart removal procedure. Code 17110 (Destruction (eg, laser surgery, electrosurgery, cryosurgery, chemosurgery, surgical curettement), of benign lesions other than skin tags or cutaneous vascular proliferative lesions; up to 14 lesions) is appropriate for the cryotherapy removal of the plantar wart. For the diagnosis code, search the ICD-10-CM Alphabetic Index for Wart > plantar and verify the code in the Tabular List. Use B07.0 (Plantar wart) to report the plantar wart diagnosis. Mike Shaughnessy, BA, CPC, Production Editor, AAPC
