Wiki Need Help With Two Coding Problems

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nancyleephillips

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I recently took a coding test for Maxim and there are two questions that I missed. I was wondering if anyone could help me with the correct answers since I would like to learn what I did wrong and Maxim doesn't seem to want to share the correct answers with me.

1. Patient presents with spinal stenosis. He was taken to the OR where a laminectomy with exploration and decompression of spinal cord at L1, L2, and L3. Assign the appropriate CPT code(s) only.

I coded 63005, but am unsure which way to go from there.

2. Patient was admitted with severe coronary arteriosclerosis. The following procedure was performed: Left internal mammary artery was taken down to the left anterior descending artery and a reverse saphenous graft was brought from the aorta to the distal LAD and diagonal. The CABG was performed while the patient was on the cardiopulmonary bypass machine.

I am so not comfortable with vascular surgery!! I coded 414.00, 33510, 33508, 36.11.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!! :confused:

Nancy
 
looks like you need additional levels on the first one, and the second one you never mix CPT and ICD-9 Vol 3 codes, if you are coding for the provider you use only CPT codes, If you are coding inpatient for the facility you use only ICD-9 Vol 3 codes. Just a quick glance.
 
nancyleephillips said:
I recently took a coding test for Maxim and there are two questions that I missed. I was wondering if anyone could help me with the correct answers since I would like to learn what I did wrong and Maxim doesn't seem to want to share the correct answers with me.

1. Patient presents with spinal stenosis. He was taken to the OR where a laminectomy with exploration and decompression of spinal cord at L1, L2, and L3. Assign the appropriate CPT code(s) only.

I coded 63005, but am unsure which way to go from there.

2. Patient was admitted with severe coronary arteriosclerosis. The following procedure was performed: Left internal mammary artery was taken down to the left anterior descending artery and a reverse saphenous graft was brought from the aorta to the distal LAD and diagonal. The CABG was performed while the patient was on the cardiopulmonary bypass machine.

I am so not comfortable with vascular surgery!! I coded 414.00, 33510, 33508, 36.11.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!! :confused:

Nancy
Click to expand...
#1. See cpt 63017
#2. Physician CPT codes 33533 and add-on code 33518 ;(for the venous portion of the combined arterial-venous grafting for CABG), these codes include cardiopulmonary bypass machine when performed.
Inpatient codes 36.15, 36.12, 39.61

Also see the link:
health-information.advanceweb.com/Web-Extras/CCS-Prep/Rerouting-of-a-Tubular-Body-Coronary-Artery-Bypass-Graft-Coding.aspx
(see Table 4: Case Study of Inpatient codes and CPT Physician codes)

________________________

Carole Monty, CPC, RN
 
Last edited:
Thank you, ladies.

Carol, I printed the article and am going to spend some time studying it so I can be more comfortable with the "heart" questions!!
 
I am also taking the test for Maxim and find it a bit difficult. I also took one for Peak Health and felt that I did really well because the questions were very straight forward; however, I just found out that I failed it :(. It is frustrating because I don't know what I did wrong to research and correct for the next time.
 
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