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Podiatry Coding & Billing Alert

Reader Questions:

11719-11721 Lets You Supervise Nail Treatments Smoothly

Published on Mon Oct 25, 2010

Question: How do you handle coding for common nail conditions?Answer: First, you should know the difference between nail trimming and nail debridement. Trimming of a nail is a procedure that is intended to reduce only the length of the nail. Your podiatrist can perform this service on a normal nail or a dystrophic nail. Meanwhile, debridement of a nail is a procedure that is intended to remove excessive material (e.g., to significantly reduce nail thickness/bulk) or excessive curvature from a clinically and significantly thickened dystrophic or diseased nail. It's also important you look at the LCD for individual regions for guidence with nail care.Code it: You should use 11720 (Debridement of nail[s] by any method[s]; 1 to 5) when debriding a total of one to five nails and CPT 11721 (Debridement of nail[s] by any method[s]; 6 or more) for debriding greater more than six nails. Again, one may trim [...]
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