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Vertebral Segment vs Motion Segment
What is the difference between a vertebral segment and a “motion segment”?
Physician Assistant Billing for New and Established Patients
Our Physician Assistant saw a new Medicare Patient in the office for evaluation of left knee pain. She evaluated the patient and developed the plan of care. The patient was scheduled for a return visit with the Physician Assistant. During the return visit, the Physician Assistant evaluated the patient and made no changes to the plan of care—she continued the NSAIDs as the patient responded well.
Can she bill this “Incident to” the physician who was in the office, as there was no change in the plan of care?
Layered Closure with Lesion Excision
Our practice performs many excisions of lesions with closures. My question is related to the closures. Is the provider documenting the closure in layers enough to report an intermediate repair if the tissue level is not?
Craniectomy for Tumor Resection
Patient had a posterior fossa craniectomy for excision of a mass which was consistent with metastatic tumor. Pathology results report the mass as a partially cystic metastatic tumor. What is the correct code 61518 or 61524?
Billing Stages for Mohs
I am very confused. I am new to coding for Mohs procedures. The Mohs surgeon performed a procedure on the patient’s scalp in 5 stages. I spoke with the Mohs surgeon about billing over 4 stages in one area using CPT code 17312. He billed 17311 for the first stage and 17312 with 4 units for a total of 5 stages. In each stage, the documentation states that 1 tissue block was mapped. I think we should bill CPT 17315 for the last stage instead of 17312 since it is the 5th stage. Can you clarify if this is the case or if 17312 with 4 units is correct.
Abdominal Hernia Defect Size
Our general surgeon often does not include the size of the abdominal repair in his documentation; can we use the pathology report to determine the correct size for CPT selection?
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