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Wiki Exploration & repair fem artery

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dpumford

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Hi! I am not 100% sure on what code to use. I can't locate any documentation to help me out so hoping someone can.

The pt had a Endovascular AAA repair done at a different location. A week later he was admited to a different hospital for hematoma and hemorrhage of femeral artery. Our doctor did the femoral artery repair and evacuation of seroma and hematoma. My question is since we did not do the actual procedure that caused the complication would coding 35860 be accurate? There is a direct repair of femoral artery(35226) which is what was done but the femoral artery was injured do to the previous catheter placments.

I hope some one can help clarify what is the proper way to code this. Thank you in advance!!!
 
You can report code 35860 for the exploration of the hematoma and hemorrhage and code 35226 for the suture repair of the SFA. Append modifier 59 to code 35860.

Code 35860 represents the physician's work in exposing the area of the hematoma/hemorrhage, determining its cause and clearing the hematoma. Code 35226 represents the physician's work in repairing the SFA. Reimbursement for code 35860 will be reduced per multiple surgery rules.

Had the SFA not required repair, the physician would have explored the affected area, cleared the hematoma, closed the surgical opening and reported code 35721 - exploration [not followed by surgical repair]; femoral artery.

Terry
 
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