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Wiki Laminectomy question?

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Amzie

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:confused:
I have just a general question I guess: My doctor states he did a L4-5 bilateral laminectomy, facetectomy and foraminotomy for spinal stenosis decompression. I am kind of in a debate here with another coder and I think that it should be coded as:
63047 only since the physician is only decompressing the nerve root at that level.

My co worker states that it should be billed as: 63047 and 63048 since the cpt book states per segement.

Can anyone help me out here? I would really appreciate it very much and if there is any documentation out there I would greatly appreciate that as well!

Thank you in advance!
 
It depends on the documentation, you bill per foraminotomy performed not per segment/per interspace. If he does not specify doing a foraminotomy at L4 and a foraminotomy at L5 it is billed per interspace so it would be 63047 only.
 
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