Shave or Excision?

Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by .

Sharpen your lesion coding prowess with this tip from John Bishop: Read the documentation carefully, and pay more attention to the removal’s depth than to the terminology your physician uses.

Technically, any time physician removes skin tissue, he’s performing an “excision.” For coding purposes, however, CPT narrowly defines an excision as involving “full-thickness (through the dermis) removal of a lesion.”

Shaving, in contrast, involves “sharp removal … without a full-thickness dermal excision.” When reporting shaving procedures, you must not consider the size of any margin the physician removes with the lesion. In fact, the physician may not document, or even take, a margin of tissue during a shave. This is a crucial difference from coding for excisions.

Support medical necessity on your lesion removal claims with these tips from Joanne Schade-Boyce.

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Check Destruction Method Before Assuming 17110

Posted on 02. Feb, 2009 by .

You could gain $30 if a shave is also performed.

Treating 17110 as your office’s catch-all skin lesion destruction procedure code could cut $30-$72 from a claim.

As pediatricians look for more ways to maximize services provided in our medical homes, understanding correct coding for skin lesion destruction becomes more important. You could be overlooking providing dermatology procedures that could benefit your bottom line. Here are some to look into — and how to code them appropriately.

Special CD Offer: Documentation tips that get you paid for office dermatology procedures.

Destruction, which means the ablation of tissues of lesions, is by any method. But some methods …

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