Wiki Excision of chest wall mass

[aiken]

How do I code excision of chest wall mass? The biopsy showed the mass to be an indurated, but not inflamed mass. I have looked at 39220, 21555, and 19260-52 but none say "mass." These codes refer to "tumor" and not to "mass." I'm a new coder so any help is appreciated! - Susan

 

[jrwclean]

Mass or tumor?

Mass, nodule, lesion, tumor, are words that tend to be used interchangeably. They do have somewhat different meanings. A lesion may or may not be formed by abnormal neoplastic cells, a tumor may or may not be malignant, a nodule may be smaller than a mass. The term mass may be used for an object larger than 20mm.

With the limited information you've provided, I would tend to go with 19260.