Wiki Ortho Help

[nyyankees]

Can anyone help? My supervisor left last week and I have to go thru a handful of Ortho op reports. I've donne ortho ops before but simple ones (rotator, knee debri, carpal, etc.).

Now I have total knee, hip, pediatric ortho with congenital issues but more importantly some spinal issues that are pretty in-depth.

I have the AAOS Code X 2008 CD that's somewhat helpful but what I'm really concerned about is missing those little pieces in the report that can be billed out and increase reimbursement.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Keith

 

[sadyelyn89]

I coded spine for about 3 years. The four things I was taught by NASS to pull and code from an op report were: decompression, arthrodesis, instrumentation and graft/harvesting. If the disc space was decompressed for the sole purpose of preparing the interspace for fusion,it cannot be billed as it is included in the fusion. However, if a decompression was medically necessary and documented as such in the report, a decompression procedure (eg: laminectomy) can be billed with the fusion. Be careful with the instrumentaiton and read up on the differences between segmental and non segmental as this can trip you up sometimes. Good luck!