Wiki Resuturing Surgical Wound

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sknewhouse

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Hello! I have a question about post-op periods and resuturing a wound.

A patient in my office had an excision on Wednesday. She had post-op bleeding and ended up the ER all night. The ER sent her back to the office in the morning after they were unable to control the bleeding. The doctor reopened the wound, cauterized and packed with gelfoam, and resutured. He coded this as a normal post-op visit (99024) but I'm wondering if this is something that we can bill for.

Does anybody know--

Would I bill for another intermediate closure (12032)?
Would I bill for secondary closure of surgical wound (13160)?
Or would I do what he suggested and record a no charge post op visit (99024)?

Thanks in advance!
 
If your patient is still in their global period, you'd have to code this as the 99024 postoperative visit. The CMS guideline is that the global period payment includes "All additional medical or surgical services required of the surgeon during the post-operative period of the surgery because of complications, which do not require additional trips to the operating room". You could only bill this if the provider had to take the patient back to the OR to do the second closure.
 
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