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Surgical wound infection---wound cleaning
A patient had surgery--Lap Chole on 7/29 and comes in on Aug 8 for wound cleaning, but has surgical wound infection, do I just code the visit with code 998.59? Am I supposed to include any other codes besides V58.31? Is an E/M code needed also? We are a FQHC clinic and refer patients elsewhere for surgeries and usually come back to our clinic for post op visits.
re: Surgical wound infection---wound cleaning
This is part of the surgeon's work: the post op care. In general, these patients should be seen by the surgeon who is paid to do the pre, intra and post op care of a procedure.
If it is a rare circumstance, you can bill with an E/M code. You may not get paid if the payer believes it should have been part of the global.