Wiki Help with plastic surgery coding

lrlewis29

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I am new to coding for plastic surgery and struggling with how to code this from this op report. Can someone please help me with the appropriate coding or direct me to a tool to help with plastics/trauma coding?


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For costochondral cartilage graft , 20910.
In CPT book " codes for obtaining autogenous bone, cartilage, tendon, fascia lata grafts, bone marrow, or other tissues through separate skin/fascial incisions should be reported separately, unless the ode descriptor references the harvesting of the graft or implant(eg, includes obtaining graft).
This patient might had multiple procedures were done at the same encounter. You need to find out procedures codes 1st before you assign cartilage harvest.

Check out this, hopefully it can help you to narrow down choice of CPT code(s) for your case.

 
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In this case the patient was in a car accident and the ear was detached. There was no previous procedure to the area in question and the graft is to be done at a later date. It's my understanding that the graft codes cannot be billed until the actual graft is done and the cartilage is harvested from the upper abdominal incision that he did. It seems based on the documentation that a debridement of cartilage/bone may be appropriate however the size of the area was not documented.

Thank you for your help!
 
Was your doctor an assistant surgeon for this surgery?
No he is the main surgeon for this surgery. There was another surgery performed on jaw earlier in the day by another provider. I spoke with my provider and he did a debridement down to the bone, harvest cartilage from the ear, created an incision in the abdominal wall near the rib and placed the cartilage there to continue to grow. At a later date he is going to take the cartilage he harvested and do a graft/reconstruct the ear.

He is actually working on an addendum to the note to be more detailed.
 
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