Wiki Wendy Pasco,CPC

[Wendy Pasco]

A patient sees her PCP for a wellness visit, a pap is done. The pap is sent to us (pathology) and cancer cells are found. The insurance denies the path billed with the primary diagosis as cancer. Can we code it with the screening code as primary and cancer as secondary?

 

[mitchellde]

It needs to be done as screening primary since that is what it was unless the patient needed the pap due to a complaint. The finding is the secondary dx.