Wiki Continuous wound care

[E. Knowlton]

Hi, I'm always unsure as to whether I can charge for a patient who comes in for continuous wound care following a procedure. In this case, the patient had an open chest wound from a gunshot and comes in regularly for dressing changes (every 2-3 days). The code that I used for the procedure was 20101 and has a 10 day global but some of the visits are within that 10 day global. Can I charge these visits for dressing changes? Thanks.

 

[FTessaBartels]

Global period

Have you looked at the Active Wound Care Management section to see if any of those codes are applicable to your case? These codes CAN be used during the global period.

If not, then dressing changes would be considered part of the E/M service. Of course this would be global during the first 10 days following the date of procedure.

Hope that helps.

F Tessa Bartels, CPC, CEMC