Successfully Code Sunburn Treatment With This Guidance
Posted on 19. Apr, 2012 by dchandhok in Hot Coding Topics
With the summer here, your practice would probably be seeing more patients with painful sunburns requiring treatment—but can you report anything beyond an E/M code for your services? Read on to learn about various types of burns.
Your physician sees a patient who might technically be “burned,” can you report a burn treatment code for her? No, if a burn does not require any local treatment, then you should typically report the service with an E/M code.
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Case: An established patient reports to the dermatologist concerned about his sunburned back. The physician examines the patient’s injury, and decides that it is superficial and will heal on its own. The doctor tells him to avoid lying on his back and to wear his shirt in the sun, and that the burn should fade in a day or two. This scenario would result in a low-level E/M such as 99212 (Office or other outpatient visit for the evaluation and management of an established patient …).
This does not mean that all sunburns will be E/M services. Caring for these injuries might result in a procedure code—if the burn is serious enough, and you can find evidence of treatment in the encounter notes.
Verify Local Treatment
Turn to the procedure code set when the provider evaluates and treats the patient’s burn. If local...
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