Wiki Help

[knperry]

Can anyone settle a disagreement between myself and the doctor I work for? He performed surg. on a patient and I coded exploratory laparotomy 49000, repair of left diaphragm 39501, and left chest tube placement 32551. He says I should code reduction of herniated viscera but I disagreed because of his notes. After speaking with him about it I'm not sure myself anymore. Can anyone please help. Some of his notes are below concerning the reduction.


An upper midline incision was made. The stomach and a portion of the transverse colon were noted to be herniated through the left diaphragm. This was reduced back into the abdomen w/o difficulty and an approximately 8 cm diaphragm laceration was noted.

Should I code the reduction and what code do you recommend?

Thanks

 

[syllingk]

I am not going to be much help here but it would probably be 44050.
On that note you wouldn't be able to bill the exploratory portion if you did bill that code but the rvu's are more for the hernia.