A recent AAPC report gave an overview of coding a diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma.
The report described a patient, Alice, who visits her physician for a follow-up visit. The physician performed a biopsy on her left ear last week after she reported that she noticed a small lesion a few months ago. It recently began to grow, so she came in to get it checked.
The physician performed a recheck of the site and the lesion looked to be the same size as when examined last week. It was not painful to the touch.
The physician assessed that Alice had a basal cell carcinoma. Alice chose to have the surgical excision performed. The encounter would be coded like this:
ICD-10-CM Codes:
C44.219 Basal cell carcinoma of skin of left ear and external auricular canal
Rationale: In ICD-10-CM, the codes for neoplasm of the skin are broken down by site, laterality, and type. There are separate codes for melanoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, other, and unspecified.
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The report described a patient, Alice, who visits her physician for a follow-up visit. The physician performed a biopsy on her left ear last week after she reported that she noticed a small lesion a few months ago. It recently began to grow, so she came in to get it checked.
The physician performed a recheck of the site and the lesion looked to be the same size as when examined last week. It was not painful to the touch.
The physician assessed that Alice had a basal cell carcinoma. Alice chose to have the surgical excision performed. The encounter would be coded like this:
ICD-10-CM Codes:
C44.219 Basal cell carcinoma of skin of left ear and external auricular canal
Rationale: In ICD-10-CM, the codes for neoplasm of the skin are broken down by site, laterality, and type. There are separate codes for melanoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, other, and unspecified.
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