Wiki Epicondylar Musculature Repair CPT/DX?

cclarson

Guru
Messages
167
Location
Conway, SC
Best answers
0
How would you code the repair of a lateral epicondylar muscle rupture? Would that fall into the 24357 - 24359 range, or is there a different CPT code that better suits this procedure? Also, for the dx, would lateral epicondylitis be used? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Here is the part of the op note where the procedure is described:

"Attention was next towards the left lateral epicondyle. A long incision was made over the lateral epicondyle. Dissection was carried down through the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Skin flaps were raised. The condyle was visualized. Clearly there was a large rupture of the extensor musculature off of the lateral epicondyle. It kind of went all the way down to include the ECRB but also into the EDC. I debrided all the bad areas of the tissue. I took an osteotome and took off some of the lateral epicondyle. It was such a large rupture, I felt a though it needed to be repaired back to the lateral epicondyle. I placed two 3.5 Arthrex corkscrew anchors into the lateral epicondyle and then used the suture to repair the extensor musculature back to the lateral epicondyle.

The sutures were placed through the extensor musculature as mattress sutures. They were sewn down in place. The wound washed out vigorously and closed with a 4-0 Monocryl suture, followed by Benzoin and Steri-Strips. Marcaine was infiltrated into both wounds. Adaptic, 4x4s, Sof-Rol, and a posterior splint were applied."
 
I'm hoping that your surgeon dictated a better diagnosis than epicondylitis for this which is treated using tenotomy. This is a repair and I would think that the diagnosis would reflect true pathology for this. Usually in the elbow area either the biceps or triceps have to be repaired or pull out from the joint entirely. And there is a code for that. However, this is not the biceps or triceps. I would look at code 24341.
 
I'm hoping that your surgeon dictated a better diagnosis than epicondylitis for this which is treated using tenotomy. This is a repair and I would think that the diagnosis would reflect true pathology for this. Usually in the elbow area either the biceps or triceps have to be repaired or pull out from the joint entirely. And there is a code for that. However, this is not the biceps or triceps. I would look at code 24341.

Epicondylitis was shown throughout the pt chart, but the dx the surgeon dictated was lateral epicondylar muscle rupture. I'm not sure of how to code that dx. Wouldn't there be a specific muscle mentioned? For the procedure, I was looking at 24341 as well, I'm thankful that someone else saw that as the more appropriate procedure code too.
 
Top