Click here for more sample CPC practice exam questions with Full Rationale Answers

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What makes a good CPC Practice Exam? Questions and Answers with Full Rationale

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2018 CPC Practice Exam Answer Key 150 Questions With Full Rationale (HCPCS, ICD-9-CM, ICD-10, CPT Codes) Click here for more sample CPC practice exam questions with Full Rationale Answers

Practice Exam

Click here for more sample CPC practice exam questions and answers with full rationale

breast cancer coding

Female patient was diagnosed with a RUO quadrant breast cancer (C50.411) who received chemo-radiation.

A year later she was diagnosed with breast cancer on the left central breast. Will the left central breast cancer be coded also as primary c50.112 or C79.81?

If the documentation stated recurrent left central breast cancer with history of right breast cancer, will C79.81 be the code for the left central breast cancer?

We don’t have pathology report available as this is for radiology department visit. I am quite confused as to when the C79.81 be used.

Per ICD guideline when patient had a lumpectomy due to breast cancer and the cancer appeared on another quadrant this new cancer will still be coded as primary cancer.

Any clarification will be greatly appreciated.

Medical Billing and Coding Forum

Breast MRI Coding Gets an Overhaul in 2019

CPT® coding for breast magnetic resonance imaging (breast MRI) has changed completely for 2019. Although we cannot yet report on the final codes and guidelines, information about the changes has surfaced after the AMA announced its release of the new CPT® code set on September 5. To begin, existing breast MRI codes 77058 Magnetic resonance imaging, […]
AAPC Knowledge Center

Failed DIEP Breast Reconstruction free flap

Patients initial surgery was a Removal of bilateral silicone implants using DIEP free flap. The patient was brought back to the operating room 4 days later for an exploration with thrombectomy and revision of venous anastomosis and restoration of flow. The patient was brought back for a 3rd operation a few days later. The flap failed. Removal of thrombosed left DIEP free flap with primary closure. I am not sure what to code for the second and 3rd operation. Do I code 19364 with a 52 modifier?

Medical Billing and Coding Forum

Breast Biopsy modifier and U/S questions

I have a patient who had a breast biopsy done and is back again for re-excision during the postoperative period as the doctor did not believe he got it all. My first question is should I append a -58 to this second attempt? Secondly, is it appropriate to code CPT 76998 (ultrasound guidance; intraoperative) with the breast biopsy (19120), and if so should a modifier be used? I realize that CPT code 76998 is a component of column 1 code 19120, but I have looked on Selectcoder and it’s showing me that they can both be used with the appropriate modifier. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Michelle King CPC

Medical Billing and Coding Forum

N63 BREAST MASS ICD10 CODES – How to request “OTHER SPECIFIED” be added for Oct 2018

Hello,

Does anyone know how to make a request for additional digits to be added to ICD-10 codes?

I had hoped the N63 code group would have an addition this fall to include an additional digit of 8 like what we see on the breast cancer codes to allow for coding overlapping quadrant areas, ie. 12,3,6 or 9 o’clock locations. Breast cancer codes allow for use of C50.8– for overlapping sites, however this is not available with the breast mass codes & we do receive denials for use of the unspecified quadrant codes. At this point it does not look like the N63 section codes will change Oct 2018.

Medical Billing and Coding Forum

Help with Re-excision of margins for breast cancer

I may be over thinking this due to it being late in the day, so I thought I would ask for help

I have a patient in office procedure Margin Re-excision as follows…..

Indication: The patient has a recurrent breast cancer of the skin and subcutaneous tissue of the left breast which wider excision is recommended.

After obtaining informed consent, the skin of the left breast at the 9 o’clock aspect was prepped with Betadine. I then infiltrated 10 cc’s of lidocaine.
I made a 4.0 cm X 2.0 cm elliptical incision around her previous biopsy site and went deep down into the fatty tissue. The lesion was removed. The margins are labeled. The wound was closed in 3 layers.
The deep layer with 3.0 vicryl, the intermediate layer with 3.0 vicryl and the skin with 4.0 monocryl in a running subcuticular fashion.

Should I code this as 19120 due to the depth, or 11606, 12032 or something completely different?

HELP,

Thanks,

Michelle

Medical Billing and Coding Forum

Breast Lump ICD denials

Our general surgery practice has been having issues with coding for breast lumps. We have had several claims deny due to ICD codes all having to do with unspecified lumps. Is anyone else having issues with this?

Examples:

Patient A had fat necrosis of breast and h/o adenocarcinoma. The insurance rejected once for the fat necrosis (N64.1) so we looked further into the op note and we used N63.21, unspecified lump in left breast. The insurance denied it again for the N63.21. We have also changed the order of the dx code…trying once with the history Z code first, once with the N code first, and the insurance rejected both. We thought about removing the LT modifier off of the CPT, since the diagnosis code includes the laterality? This was all for a removal of a breast lesion.

Patient B has C50.112 as a diagnosis for a partial mastectomy, the insurance rejected the ICD code.

Anyone else been having trouble with any of these codes? I know the N63.2- area is all unspecified, so we thought that could be part of it. But the C50.112 is fairly specific.

I know Medicare was having issues with this but both of these cases are other insurances. One is a BCBS and one is United HC.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Medical Billing and Coding Forum