Wiki Help with laminectomy/incidental durotomy coding

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My provider was performing a b/l decompression laminectomy of L2 - L5 and had an incidental dural injury. Is the dural repair included with the laminectomy? Here is the note. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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Hi! The repair of the dura would not be coded separately. In the NCCI Policy Manual, Chapter 8, section C.12, there is a good guideline to help with this scenario: If a dural (cerebrospinal fluid) leak occurs during a spinal procedure, repair of the dural leak is integral to the spinal procedure. CPT code 63707 or 63709 (Repair of dural/cerebrospinal fluid leak) shall not be reported separately for the repair.

Since the injury to the dura occurred during a spinal procedure (a laminectomy), I would not report the repair separately. I hope that helps :)

Kim
www.codingmastery.com
 
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