Wiki Injection Question

[cwilson3333]

Patient seen by doctor for swollen, stiff neck, due to strenous activity.
Doctor coded 20610 for injection with J1885 as drug injected.

Shouldn't this be coded as 20552?

Need some expert advice.

Thanks,

CW

 

[mitchellde]

it depends on what the note describes, 20610 is a joint injection and 20552 is a muscle.

 

[jghaddock]

If the injection was into the muscle, then I agree with 20552.

Jenn Haddock
Orthopedics

 

[sjwillis]

20552 is for a trigger point injection and if this is a Medicare patient the specific muscle injected would need to be documented. Also Medicare has very limited covered diagnoses for this procedure....hence the we would need to know what muscle exactly to code correctly. If there is not any documentation to support the above then you could code it as a 96372, therapeutic injection w\J1885.

Patient seen by doctor for swollen, stiff neck, due to strenous activity.
Doctor coded 20610 for injection with J1885 as drug injected.

Shouldn't this be coded as 20552?

Need some expert advice.

Thanks,

CW