title: Coding and reimbursement of primary care debridement and excision procedures.
abstract: Current medical practice requires physicians to accurately report services provided to patients. Patient billing for debridement and excision procedures involves the selection of specific 1992 Physicians' Current Procedural Terminology codes. Although a site-specific surgical procedure code often yields higher reimbursement than a general procedure code, physicians should select the code that most accurately reflects the procedure performed. This review identifies the codes used to report destruction and excision procedures performed by primary care physicians. Included in this review are skin debridement, burn debridement, excision of benign and malignant lesions of the skin and subcutaneous tissue, cyst and ganglion excision, nail excision, anorectal lesion excision, shave, paring, and skin tag excision procedures, and foreign body removal. The Health Care Financing Administration's relative value units and one state's published Medicaid payment rates are included for each procedure code. Instructions are provided for selecting between multiple coding options when more than one code describes the service provided.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, East Carolina University School of Medicine, Greenville, NC.
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Zuber
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Purvis
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D003646:Debridement / Q000145:classification*; D062109:Dermatologic Surgical Procedures; D006801:Humans; D007344:Insurance Claim Reporting; D008484:Medicaid / Q000458:organization & administration; D008499:Medical Records; D016345:Medicare Part B / Q000458:organization & administration; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000601:surgery; D009657:North Carolina; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D015895:Relative Value Scales; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000145:classification*; D014481:United States